Return to Ohio and the Final Jump
Multi-strand Billet Caster
During my time in Canada, Wean United had a relationship with a New Jersey based company, considered to be the foremost designer and supplier of continuous casting technology for steel–machines for casting multiple strands of billets to rounds to large slabs.
The Canadian subsidiary had manufactured parts of some billet casters for Concast and it seemed normal for us to bid successfully on another piece of equipment for Concast. As was usual, we made a weight estimate of the fabricated structure, which came to about 150,000 pounds. When the final drawings were sent to us by Concast, something didn’t seem right. We recalculated the weight from the new drawings and found it to total somewhat over 600,000 pounds. We re-checked our original calculations, which were confirmed to have been correct.
I contacted my counterpart at Concast, NJ and conveyed the message that we could go in one of three directions: we would supply the equipment based on the original drawings at the price quoted or the price could be adjusted to reflect the additional scope or the order could be cancelled and Concast could find another supplier. Naturally, Concast claimed that we had incorrectly estimated the weight from the original drawings. No, we hadn’t. Yes, we had, etc. Herb Fastert, the boss of Concast called my boss in Pittsburgh to complain about my tactics and demand that we get on with manufacturing the job at the agreed price. Our boss from Pittsburgh, having flown up to see what we idiots were up to, was confronted by the indisputable fact that between the time we made our estimate and the time we received the order from Concast the weight had quadrupled. Our boss confirmed our position to Herb and received a letter which he was asked to countersign signifying his support for ‘Ascough’s blackmailing techniques’. The letter was duly signed and returned to Concast and so began my relationship with Herb Fastert in the early 1970’s.
Having been released from Cegelec, and at the age of 56, I was quite concerned that it would be difficult to get another decent job. I approached the engineering arm of a well known steel company and, after several months of effort, I received an offer of employment at a salary about 10% less than I was making at Cegelec. But beggars can’t be choosers I thought. I was on the verge of accepting the offer when, in June 1997, I received a call from Herb, who by this time was the President and CEO of SMS Engineering, Concast having been acquired and merged into SMS. We arranged to meet for lunch at the Duquesne Club that day. Herb asked me if I was looking for a job and I told him I was on the verge of accepting an offer. He said something like ‘then we have to hurry’! During that lunch, I accepted a position of Vice President of SMS with a view to taking over the company when Herb retired in the future. Amazing!
I received the written offer from Herb that afternoon and, feeling somewhat guilty, I made the call to the other company and explained the situation; they were not happy, as a lot of effort had gone into getting an offer to me approved. I was very sorry to have caused this inconvenience and wrote to all those who had worked hard on my behalf. It was a happy day. It seemed as if I might well follow in my departed friend Jeremy Thomas’ footsteps to take over the best engineering company in Pittsburgh.
Herb’s generosity and tolerance was tested further, when I informed him that we had booked tickets to Prague and would be away for a month or more before I could start. He was kind enough to agree.
On our return from Europe a nice new Buick Park Avenue, my new company car was waiting for me and I set off on the final step of my career. Initially I was to take over SMS’s operation in Mentor, OH. It was a small engineering and manufacturing enterprise manufacturing process lines; at the time when Jeremy Thomas had acquired it, a few years before, it had seemed to be a strange fit with SMS.
The processing line equipment designed and manufactured by Wean United was top end equipment–ruggedly designed to last and last. It was, naturally, expensive equipment but initially that was not a factor in its demise; in fact the design and construction was a major factor contributing to the excellent global opinion of Wean’s customers. The small outfit in Mentor designed to considerably different standards and targeted a different market from that of the primary steel producers.
There had developed a secondary industry for finishing the processing of steel. In the flat rolled market, cleaning the steel by passing it through acid baths, coating it with zinc, shearing it to sheets, slitting it into narrow widths and etc., were operations that the primary producers were sometimes happy to surrender to the secondary market; these secondary market companies became known as ‘steel service centers’ and were able to supply flat rolled steel products as well as many more steel products in smaller quantities and more responsively than it was economical for the major steel producers to do. The steel service centers did not wish to buy Wean style equipment as it was far too expensive for them and not required for their levels of productions.
The Mentor company targeted the lighter end of the steel service center business, but had developed a method for cleaning steel by pushing it through a series of baths of hydrochloric acid before rinsing in clean water–the process known as ‘pickling’ steel which had come from a hot rolling mill. SMS' Mentor Company had many competitors including one in Mentor itself. Many of these competitors had been formed by engineers who had left Wean, sometimes with many of Wean’s design drawings in their possession. It should be noted that Wean United did not take any steps towards changing its designs to target the steel service centers, who became increasingly more important as the years passed and this inaction was one of the key factors which hastened the demise of the former world leader.
Having been brought up at Wean, it was difficult for me to adapt my own thinking to the type of designs for which I was now responsible. Meanwhile, in Germany, SMS was starting up its own processing line division and we were to be attached, technically, to that new division. The two gentlemen running the new division in Germany became excellent friends and partners and we were able to make some progress from Mentor. However, SMS Germany was in an acquisition mood and intent on purchasing a Canadian company–much larger and with a much larger installed base than our Mentor company. The writing was on the wall, but by the time this happened, I was scheduled to return to Pittsburgh.
Even though Herb had selected me as his successor, it was necessary to seek alternative candidates from inside and outside the company. The candidates had to be interviewed by members of SMS Germany’s Board and an outside Executive Search company in New York. My interview was scheduled to take place in the US Airways Club at Kennedy Airport after I stepped off a plane from New Delhi and was waiting my flight to Pittsburgh. I had no time to freshen up and must have appeared extremely disheveled after the long flight. My interviews with the Board went well until it came time to meet with the colorful Board Member with whom I had had several, not always harmonious, encounters during the previous decades while I was working on the electrical and automation side of our industry. Nevertheless, I was selected and our Chairman from Germany announced my appointment at a special meeting in Pittsburgh. Naturally, it felt good!
I was to become President and COO, while Herb served as Chairman and CEO, so that I could have a very reasonable time to learn the ropes. Herb was an extraordinary mentor and I was very happy to have the privilege of working with a man whose accomplishments in the field of continuous casting had made him a highly respected engineer and leader throughout the industry. Herb presided over some extremely difficult contracts and difficult customers, discussions which continued well into my tenure as CEO and from which Herb shielded me, since it made no sense for a newcomer to become involved in such long running and complex discussions.
While I was still President-in-waiting, our parent acquired one of its major competitors Mannesmann Demag from Duisburg, MD for short. MD, as SMS, had subsidiary companies in key markets outside Germany including Pittsburgh. Our companies were to be merged in Pittsburgh. Since many MD alumni were ex-Wean United or friends I had met due the years, involvement in the inevitable downsizing, known politely as ‘synergy’ was not something I could avoid. I recall with great displeasure the time my boss at Westinghouse had told me that I needed to select n people from the marketing department to be laid off. I argued that reducing the sales effort would not be likely to increase order intake. I argued so much that the boss told me that if I didn’t give him some names, he would make his own choices. I did not like this, but I had to do it.
I’d been involved with head count reductions at Wean and, as the VP of Sales, I was obliged to take the stand in a discrimination suit filed against the company. The plaintiff’s counsel was a sleazy, ambulance chasing lowlife with whom I did not strike up immediate rapport. I answered his questions and was accused by him of being unresponsive; the Federal judge admonished the lawyer that, in his opinion, I was being fully responsive. As the jury rendered its verdict in favor of the plaintiff they explained that I had convinced them that there had been no wrongdoing by Wean, but they felt sorry for the plaintiff anyway. So did I.
Reducing personnel is the worst thing an executive has to do. To reduce the combined SMS and MD by about 50% was a nightmare and an even more terrible experience than I had had at Wean or Westinghouse. But we had to do it.
I enjoyed most of my time as CEO, but, in retrospect, it was not my cup of tea. I am an application engineer, a salesman, a contract negotiator, a senior person comfortable dealing with the top levels of customer’s organizations, I am a marketeer, I am a sales strategist, I thrive on technology, I do not like confrontation except in the natural course of contract negotiations, I do not like monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual financial reports or forecasts. I do not like making impossible forecasts for new orders. I had a contract with SMS as CEO for almost five years. During that time, I did not do most of the things I like to do. The contract was not renewed, but I was bumped upstairs as non-executive Chairman. Thereafter I had part-time contracts until I left the company at age 62 with, I think, many thanks to our CFO, Pete Ferney, I was covered under the company’s benefits or COBRA until I could go on to Medicare.
The Canadian subsidiary had manufactured parts of some billet casters for Concast and it seemed normal for us to bid successfully on another piece of equipment for Concast. As was usual, we made a weight estimate of the fabricated structure, which came to about 150,000 pounds. When the final drawings were sent to us by Concast, something didn’t seem right. We recalculated the weight from the new drawings and found it to total somewhat over 600,000 pounds. We re-checked our original calculations, which were confirmed to have been correct.
I contacted my counterpart at Concast, NJ and conveyed the message that we could go in one of three directions: we would supply the equipment based on the original drawings at the price quoted or the price could be adjusted to reflect the additional scope or the order could be cancelled and Concast could find another supplier. Naturally, Concast claimed that we had incorrectly estimated the weight from the original drawings. No, we hadn’t. Yes, we had, etc. Herb Fastert, the boss of Concast called my boss in Pittsburgh to complain about my tactics and demand that we get on with manufacturing the job at the agreed price. Our boss from Pittsburgh, having flown up to see what we idiots were up to, was confronted by the indisputable fact that between the time we made our estimate and the time we received the order from Concast the weight had quadrupled. Our boss confirmed our position to Herb and received a letter which he was asked to countersign signifying his support for ‘Ascough’s blackmailing techniques’. The letter was duly signed and returned to Concast and so began my relationship with Herb Fastert in the early 1970’s.
Having been released from Cegelec, and at the age of 56, I was quite concerned that it would be difficult to get another decent job. I approached the engineering arm of a well known steel company and, after several months of effort, I received an offer of employment at a salary about 10% less than I was making at Cegelec. But beggars can’t be choosers I thought. I was on the verge of accepting the offer when, in June 1997, I received a call from Herb, who by this time was the President and CEO of SMS Engineering, Concast having been acquired and merged into SMS. We arranged to meet for lunch at the Duquesne Club that day. Herb asked me if I was looking for a job and I told him I was on the verge of accepting an offer. He said something like ‘then we have to hurry’! During that lunch, I accepted a position of Vice President of SMS with a view to taking over the company when Herb retired in the future. Amazing!
I received the written offer from Herb that afternoon and, feeling somewhat guilty, I made the call to the other company and explained the situation; they were not happy, as a lot of effort had gone into getting an offer to me approved. I was very sorry to have caused this inconvenience and wrote to all those who had worked hard on my behalf. It was a happy day. It seemed as if I might well follow in my departed friend Jeremy Thomas’ footsteps to take over the best engineering company in Pittsburgh.
Herb’s generosity and tolerance was tested further, when I informed him that we had booked tickets to Prague and would be away for a month or more before I could start. He was kind enough to agree.
On our return from Europe a nice new Buick Park Avenue, my new company car was waiting for me and I set off on the final step of my career. Initially I was to take over SMS’s operation in Mentor, OH. It was a small engineering and manufacturing enterprise manufacturing process lines; at the time when Jeremy Thomas had acquired it, a few years before, it had seemed to be a strange fit with SMS.
The processing line equipment designed and manufactured by Wean United was top end equipment–ruggedly designed to last and last. It was, naturally, expensive equipment but initially that was not a factor in its demise; in fact the design and construction was a major factor contributing to the excellent global opinion of Wean’s customers. The small outfit in Mentor designed to considerably different standards and targeted a different market from that of the primary steel producers.
There had developed a secondary industry for finishing the processing of steel. In the flat rolled market, cleaning the steel by passing it through acid baths, coating it with zinc, shearing it to sheets, slitting it into narrow widths and etc., were operations that the primary producers were sometimes happy to surrender to the secondary market; these secondary market companies became known as ‘steel service centers’ and were able to supply flat rolled steel products as well as many more steel products in smaller quantities and more responsively than it was economical for the major steel producers to do. The steel service centers did not wish to buy Wean style equipment as it was far too expensive for them and not required for their levels of productions.
The Mentor company targeted the lighter end of the steel service center business, but had developed a method for cleaning steel by pushing it through a series of baths of hydrochloric acid before rinsing in clean water–the process known as ‘pickling’ steel which had come from a hot rolling mill. SMS' Mentor Company had many competitors including one in Mentor itself. Many of these competitors had been formed by engineers who had left Wean, sometimes with many of Wean’s design drawings in their possession. It should be noted that Wean United did not take any steps towards changing its designs to target the steel service centers, who became increasingly more important as the years passed and this inaction was one of the key factors which hastened the demise of the former world leader.
Having been brought up at Wean, it was difficult for me to adapt my own thinking to the type of designs for which I was now responsible. Meanwhile, in Germany, SMS was starting up its own processing line division and we were to be attached, technically, to that new division. The two gentlemen running the new division in Germany became excellent friends and partners and we were able to make some progress from Mentor. However, SMS Germany was in an acquisition mood and intent on purchasing a Canadian company–much larger and with a much larger installed base than our Mentor company. The writing was on the wall, but by the time this happened, I was scheduled to return to Pittsburgh.
Even though Herb had selected me as his successor, it was necessary to seek alternative candidates from inside and outside the company. The candidates had to be interviewed by members of SMS Germany’s Board and an outside Executive Search company in New York. My interview was scheduled to take place in the US Airways Club at Kennedy Airport after I stepped off a plane from New Delhi and was waiting my flight to Pittsburgh. I had no time to freshen up and must have appeared extremely disheveled after the long flight. My interviews with the Board went well until it came time to meet with the colorful Board Member with whom I had had several, not always harmonious, encounters during the previous decades while I was working on the electrical and automation side of our industry. Nevertheless, I was selected and our Chairman from Germany announced my appointment at a special meeting in Pittsburgh. Naturally, it felt good!
I was to become President and COO, while Herb served as Chairman and CEO, so that I could have a very reasonable time to learn the ropes. Herb was an extraordinary mentor and I was very happy to have the privilege of working with a man whose accomplishments in the field of continuous casting had made him a highly respected engineer and leader throughout the industry. Herb presided over some extremely difficult contracts and difficult customers, discussions which continued well into my tenure as CEO and from which Herb shielded me, since it made no sense for a newcomer to become involved in such long running and complex discussions.
While I was still President-in-waiting, our parent acquired one of its major competitors Mannesmann Demag from Duisburg, MD for short. MD, as SMS, had subsidiary companies in key markets outside Germany including Pittsburgh. Our companies were to be merged in Pittsburgh. Since many MD alumni were ex-Wean United or friends I had met due the years, involvement in the inevitable downsizing, known politely as ‘synergy’ was not something I could avoid. I recall with great displeasure the time my boss at Westinghouse had told me that I needed to select n people from the marketing department to be laid off. I argued that reducing the sales effort would not be likely to increase order intake. I argued so much that the boss told me that if I didn’t give him some names, he would make his own choices. I did not like this, but I had to do it.
I’d been involved with head count reductions at Wean and, as the VP of Sales, I was obliged to take the stand in a discrimination suit filed against the company. The plaintiff’s counsel was a sleazy, ambulance chasing lowlife with whom I did not strike up immediate rapport. I answered his questions and was accused by him of being unresponsive; the Federal judge admonished the lawyer that, in his opinion, I was being fully responsive. As the jury rendered its verdict in favor of the plaintiff they explained that I had convinced them that there had been no wrongdoing by Wean, but they felt sorry for the plaintiff anyway. So did I.
Reducing personnel is the worst thing an executive has to do. To reduce the combined SMS and MD by about 50% was a nightmare and an even more terrible experience than I had had at Wean or Westinghouse. But we had to do it.
I enjoyed most of my time as CEO, but, in retrospect, it was not my cup of tea. I am an application engineer, a salesman, a contract negotiator, a senior person comfortable dealing with the top levels of customer’s organizations, I am a marketeer, I am a sales strategist, I thrive on technology, I do not like confrontation except in the natural course of contract negotiations, I do not like monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual financial reports or forecasts. I do not like making impossible forecasts for new orders. I had a contract with SMS as CEO for almost five years. During that time, I did not do most of the things I like to do. The contract was not renewed, but I was bumped upstairs as non-executive Chairman. Thereafter I had part-time contracts until I left the company at age 62 with, I think, many thanks to our CFO, Pete Ferney, I was covered under the company’s benefits or COBRA until I could go on to Medicare.
TurboCommander
One fine Ohio evening in 1973 I was flying in Wean’s Turbo Commander, back from Canada, with an Indian friend, Mr. K.S. Ghaddhi, from the Tinplate Company Of India. Ghaddhi lent forward and asked me if he could read my palm and so he did.
He found that I would attain a very high position in the industry and would retire at the top.
And so I did!
He found that I would attain a very high position in the industry and would retire at the top.
And so I did!