A Double-barreled Approach To Crisis Management

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Like the companies they work for, Goldstick and Schreiber have an advantage in being a small, two-man outfit. This keeps them organizationally lean, flexible, able to move as needed and with little ceremony. They also enjoy the advantage of being amost complete opposites -- sort of an "Odd Couple" of the business administration world.

Goldstick, a gregarious individual, explodes with phrases like "stereo view of things" and "cash is king."

Schreiber comes across as his perfect counterpart, the buttoned-down financial whiz with horn-rimmed glasses and a style of commentary as even and measured as a heartbeat.

In this case, opposites not only attract, they click. The friendship goes back 15 years.

Goldstick founded Information Control Corp., a Los Angeles-based manufacturer of minicomputers and computer peripherals, in 1965. ("Beforce then I was a technocrat," he says.) Today he remains chairman of the board. At one point his chief financial officer was George Schreiber. But in 1976 Schreiber went off to establish his own consulting firm, concentrating in the areas of debt reorganization, operational analysis, and financial profiles.

Last year they were brought together again professionally by a friend who asked them to join forces in finding and defusing an imminent crisis at his computer company. Thus was born Goldstick & Schreiber Inc., with offices in Englewood, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles.

Their clients range from high-tech companies to agricultural businesses, most with annual revenues of under $50 million. So far, they've worked with firms only as far afield as Oregon and Texas. But both men take it as a matter of course they they'll be serving clients across the nation within the next three years -- and they intend to see that their own growth doesn't make them a victim of any of their 13 problems.