"Right now we're in the process of educating the employees," Gorde says. "If you put in an ESOP and your only reason is the tax ramifications, then you don't want the employees to become educated as to what their rights are, because all you're doing is inviting them to become involved in the company, and you don't really want that. In our case, we're asking every employee to become an owner and a partner."
Each employee is given a 56-page description of the plan written in "plain talk," a prose style characterized by simple, declarative sentences with a glossary at the end of the plan just to make sure everything is easily understood. 'I think the average person on the production line is not as concerned about the ESOP as he or she is about the next paycheck," says Benjamin Kutner, the company's vice-president of finance. "But as we learn more about it and we're able to do things like allowing people to borrow against the equity in their stock, then they'll be more appreciative of the ESOP, and it will make them feel more like they're working for themselves rather than for some boss."
The new ESOP is hard evidence that Gorde is willing to put his money where his mouth is, but it is not a gift. "Sharing," he says, "means sharing the bad as well as the good." During the second half of 1982, for example, employees were asked to accept a 15% cut in pay because business was expected to be slow. That would erode first-half profits, and then the company couldn't show bankers its expected 5% profit margin. Gorde may say that "the bottom line is such a narrow, unhealthy target, such a limited goal," but in practice, he acts like it is The Deity. The alternative to the pay cut was a lay off of six employees. Gorde said the company would return the pay cut during the anticipated strong first-half of the next year, but he couldn't guarantee it. According to Gorde, the employees considered the issue for five hours, and finally voted to accept the pay cut. But morale was low for months, and the decision remains controversial even after the money has been returned. To Gorde, however, the temporary pay cut demonstrates the company's willingness to control its finances. "This company is very much based on capitalism," he says. "It is very much aware of the bottom line and it does, at times, prevail."
For Gorde, however, the regency of the bottom line often seems like a hollow accomplishment. "You know," he says, "the development of excess money has nothing to do with what I thought was important when I was 22. In fact, that's what I resented most -- that everybody had turned out the best part of themselves and replaced it with the bottom line." He recalls that when he dropped out of school, his father told him that while he was wasting his time, his friends were passing him by on their way to successful careers. To which he said something like, "When I want to, I'll make them look like they're standing still." And by his 30th birthday, Gorde had already lived up to his promise. He was the president of a company whose rapid growth seemed like only a prelude to greater glories. But in some ways it was a bittersweet victory.
"Sometimes I can't see anything else but that I've already sold out," Gorde says. "And Wendy will sit down with me because she knows I feel really bummed out and she'll say 'Jerry, take a look around. Look at how many people are working for your company that have an opportunity that only you could have made for them. You may be losing part of yourself, but you're not losing it forever. We're making something happen; it's creative effort, a productive effort. The work is valuable; it makes people feel good.' "
Wendy's attitude about work at Virginia Textiles appears to be shared by most of the people there. "When I was a road salesman," Jerome Golfman, now a senior salesperson and partner, says, "I was just a peasant. Now I'm the master of my fate." He dreams of owning a hotel on a beach somewhere and sometimes wonders if he is "a capitalist whore." Bruce Greenblatt, 26, who used to sell restaurant equipment and now sells advertising specialties and T-shirts, says, "Jerry's changed my opinion of myself. He's given me a chance that I would never have had before." Sarah Parker, 27, who has been with the company for six months, thinks she is "kind of an administrator with advertising specialties, but pretty much an experiment." "I guess all the people here see it as the ticket to their dreams," she says.
For all of them, it has been Jerry Gorde who opened the path to their dreams. As Benjamin Kutner says, "It's still very much a one-man organization." Gorde is its high priest and keeper of The Vision. He sees himself as a "casual communicator" who delivers everyone's mail each morning and cruises his turf in a variety of Levis, bib overalls, flannel shirts, and workman's caps, proselytizing the faith. "Step one's been completed," Gorde says. "I'm a minority stockholder and now I depend on my influence, respect, esteem, and charisma to make sure it continues to go the way I think it should."
But some of the more intriguing dramas in the Virginia Textiles story haven't been played out yet. What, in fact, will happen to the company if Gorde does cash in his chips? Who is Jerry Gorde, or what is he becoming? "Watching Jerry now trying to straddle the socialistic and the capitalistic, well, I sit and chuckle," his father says. "This is his own personal fight, but I know who's going to win. Capitalism's going to win, there's no two ways about it. First he started out with a little convertible Falcon, now he's got the convertible Mercedes; he bought a three-piece suit; he bought a house; he got a passport. Hey, there's only one thing that can happen. He's going to be a filthy capitalist one day."
One thing is for certain. Ten long years ago, Gorde set out for Katmandu, at the northern foot of the Mahabharat mountain range in central Nepal, where the snow leopards and yeti howl to the distant looming presence of Mount Everest.
So far he has reached Richmond. It has been a long trip.
