Page 72 - Gary's Book - Final Copy 7.9.2017_Active

Group along with having other miscellaneous duties. All flights, hotel and car
reservations were set for the next day.

I was totally shocked - beyond surprised! I was disappointed and quite irritated.
This was not the Dow Corning I was used to. I almost resigned but thought I was
better off in Chicago than in Midland seeking new employment, so off to Chicago

we went.

The territory covered eight midwestern states with seven salesmen generating
$38M to $40M; I would oversee all of them. In addition, I would be overseeing
retiree ceremonies, supervising office openings, managing safety orientations,
organizing new marketing and developing product programs within the company
in the areas of Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston and New York. These were all

staff management duties with no involvement in decisions of reward system
designs, releasing policies, pricing products and reorganizations, which I had
always been a part of and was prepared for. At best, I simply just coped with this
assignment and decided that I had to retain my sanity. So, after three years, I
resigned. It was not a line function; it was a staff function. They said it would be a

one-year assignment, and I had already been there for three years.

I left Dow Corning after being a company man for 17 years. It was not an easy
decision, but after learning about other job possibilities with current and prior
customers, I was ready to look at other opportunities, consider them, and move on.
I had told my salespeople for years that if you cannot get a better offer from
another company, then you are not excelling at the level you should on behalf of

Dow Corning. I was getting better offers.

I decided that I did not want to go to New York or California; the Midwest was our
number one choice of location. Soon thereafter, in 1981, I became director of sales
with Olin Water Services (OWS) in Overland Park, Kansas. OWS is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Olin Corporation in Stamford, Connecticut. Two other
directors were hired at the same time: the director of marketing and director of

technical services. We all reported to the general manager. The company was a
consolidation of three commercial water treatment purchases: one in New York,
one in Los Angeles, and one in Kansas City. There had been an attempt to merge
all the duplicate functions over the prior four years, but it was totally unsuccessful.

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