The more Poure thought about the plan, the better he liked it, and -- in late 1984 -- he put it into effect. He assigned his 22-year-old son. Tim, to work directly with Hap Murphey in the marketing area. Niemeyer took on 38-year-old Roger Meyer, the company's controller. Berger was teamed up with 23-year-old Mike Feehan, General Alum's production manager. And Poure himself focused on the career development of 29-year-old Barbara Lehman, his administrative assistant.
It has been three years since Poure first set up the mentor system, and General Alum has never been healthier. Sales have climbed from $3.8 million in 1983, when the company finally turned a modest profit, to about $7 million last year. Since 1985, moreover, it has been "substantially profitable," according to Poure. Meanwhile, all the mentors continue to play an active role, he says, and the young managers are "two or three years ahead of their time."
Each of the mentors has had a significant impact on the company. Early on, for example, Murphey persuaded Poure to refocus General Alum's marketing efforts away from the municipal water business toward private contracts, primarily in the paper industry. "Over half the alum in this country is used in the paper business," says Murphey. "If you get a good industrial account like a paper company, you can still negotiate a competitive price, but service is more important to maintain that account. With the municipal business, it wouldn't matter how good [the service was]: if our price was a buck a ton too high, we'd lose the business."
While he was advising Jim Poure on the company's strategy, Murphey was helping Tim Poure to implement it. "The first time I went in the field with him," says Tim Poure, "we were making a contract proposal to a paper company in Milwaukee. I didn't know what to expect. I mean, when you've got a bunch of 40- and 50-year-olds sitting around a table, and some 22-year-old starts tooting his horn about what his company can do for them -- well, there's often a credibility problem." But Tim had been to the company's paper mills. He knew what the company needed and how General Alum could provide it. Murphey, for his part, could speak with authority about broader trends in the paper industry. "I was able to get the people's attention, and he was able to come in and do some sharp marketing," Tim recalls. "It was a real nice combination." Real nice, indeed. General Alum beat out two large competitors for the contract.
This is not to suggest that the mentors do the managers' work for them. True, they provide contacts and handle specific tasks that demand a higher level of expertise. But more often they serve as teachers and advisers. "Our role," says Murphey, "is to be elder statesmen, to critique them if we think they are doing it wrong."
Sometimes the young people choose to ignore the advice. Murphey and Tim Poure once disagreed about a young woman who had applied for a job as a salesperson. She was enthusiastic enough, said Murphey, but she didn't have enough experience in the chemical industry. "In his day, there were no female salesmen," says Tim, who hired the woman anyway. Within six months, she was the top sales-person on the staff.
Usually, however, the young managers are happy to follow their mentors' advice. "If I didn't have [Niemeyer] to turn to, I'd have to go to an outside accounting firm to get direction," says controller Meyer. "He helped us to revamp our entire budget process, so that it was as sophisticated and as accurate as possible."
Oddly enough, Niemeyer has also played a mentoring role with his old friend Jim Poure, forcing him to accept a financial discipline that does not come naturally to him. "Two years ago," Poure recalls, "when we weren't getting the profits we expected from the new plant [in Toledo], he spent about an hour in the parking lot, chewing me out for a couple of things we'd done. I don't mean he shook his finger at me, but he gave me a firm and constructive analysis of the mistakes we'd made and how we could have avoided them. If you are going to bring someone in as an adviser, you'd better be able to listen and learn. I recognized that he was correct."
More recently, Niemeyer helped Poure restructure the company. Prior to the restructuring, General Alum's two plants and its distribution division were separate corporations, a device Poure had used to obtain financing. Niemeyer came up with a plan to consolidate the different entities under one corporate roof and to buy out the Toledo investor, leaving Poure as 100% owner of General Alum. At the same time, Niemeyer put together a financial package to provide the company with capital for expansion, then helped present it to the bank. "Banks like it when senior people make a presentation," notes Niemeyer. "It gives you greater credibility. We came up with a logical plan, showing there was more to the numbers than just wishful thinking." The bank approved the loan.
Poure himself could not be more pleased with the way things have turned out. His own life is much calmer these days. "I had so much going on at once that I couldn't separate everything," he says. "I'm probably putting in as many hours as before, or more, but I'm a hell of a lot more productive."
Not that the system is perfect. "You have to remember that these people are retired," he notes, "and they like to travel. Sometimes they aren't around when you want to bounce something off them. But now I feel comfortable bouncing things off my own management staff, whereas a year or two ago I didn't."
The development of the management team has allowed Poure to think about long-term issues, including succession. With the encouragement of his advisers, he has designated his son Tim as heir apparent, although he himself has no plans to retire for another 10 or 15 years. "It helps Tim to know the time frame," says Poure, "and we felt that [his designation as successor] would give our employees a good feeling, knowing that the company would continue."
Meanwhile, General Alum continues to grow. With the decision to build a third plant, Poure decided that it was time to add an experienced manager to his team and -- in April -- brought in James J. Young, a 59-year-old senior vice-president at Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., as the company's chief operating officer. Nevertheless, he has every intention of keeping the mentor system in place, training the people who will run the company in years to come.
