The Legacy Of Charlie Moore

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"I think we all went out for beer and pizza once," recalls Hudson. "Charlie kept mentioning it for months. At 5:30 on a Friday afternoon we'd all be in the parking lot, talking about getting something to eat together, and Charlie would walk by and say, 'Great, we'll have to do that sometime.' Then he'd drive away."

In time, Moore began to drive away some key employees as well. In a hassle over benefits, his longtime assistant quit. Others may have figured that if the CEO chose to play his cards so close to the vest, they'd deal themselves hands of their own.

"Charlie would call me up with some technical problem, a grease trap, say, that wasn't working right," says Kellogg, "but within a couple of minutes it was always, 'So-and-so's screwing me over. He's writing his own contracts on the side. I can't control him.' Personnel stuff, you know.

"That's when I'd hammer on Charlie about equity. 'For Chrissake,' I'd tell him, 'open up to people. Get them involved.' For some reason he couldn't. I had guys like Don [Johnson] and Bob [Bradley] to let my hair down with, but Charlie had nobody. There wasn't one person in that company who knew what the hell was going on."

The more Kellogg talked to him, the more he began to realize that Moore's penchant for secrecy wasn't having a negative impact on just his management team. It was having a negative impact on customers as well. Some of the smaller accounts had already been falling by the wayside. Moore was starting to relay complaints about reports not getting out, about systems not running right -- details that were not characteristic of a Charlie Moore to leave unattended, even if he did them himself. And that, indeed, was part of Moore's problem. Even when he couldn't do them all himself -- and in the final months he got around to perhaps only 30% of his plants -- he took responsibility for each project personally. Each failure, large or small, was his failure. He was increasingly angry with his employees and angrier still with himself.

"It was a classic situation," says Hanson. "A guy sets standards that are way too high -- that others can't possibly live up to -- and then feels betrayed when they give up trying. Actually, it was a mutual sense of betrayal. He couldn't bring himself to fire [anyone], but he felt let down. And they didn't trust him."

Even Hudson, who salutes Moore for having "taught me everything I know," confesses that in the end, he, too, was reaching the end of his rope.

"I was seriously considering leaving if it'd gone on much longer," he says quietly. "Charlie got difficult just being around." He stares at the tabletop. "I don't want this to sound morbid," he sighs, "but maybe Charlie found the one way he could think of to finally quit his job."

After Moore's death, Kellogg dispatched Don Johnson to Exton, Pa. Johnson packed his camper and dug in for what would be a three-month siege, making good on Kellogg's promise to help David Moore hold the company together until a buyout arrangement could be reached. He also spent as much time as he could with Brian Moore, Charlie's son. Brian had joined the company about eight months before his father's death, and now he was determined to preserve his father's legacy. Johnson was just as determined to help him.

How troubled had Charlie Moore been? As he went through Moore's desk, the first thing Johnson spotted were the financials for the previous five years. Sitting 18 inches from the CEO's elbow, they might as well have been entombed in steel.

The acquisition took four months to complete. Kellogg delegated the details to trusted colleagues and asked not to see the contracts until they were "95% done." It would be another six months before he could bring himself to set foot in the offices of the only company his own had ever taken over.

Steve Kellogg, 36, sits in his office and tugs on his slightly graying beard. Surrounding him are an architect's sketch of the new YWC headquarters and a wall full of framed degrees and engineering certificates -- the kind of visible evidence of achievement that his friend Charlie Moore, as Kellogg well knows, never decorated an office with. He has agreed to talk about Moore, not to second-guess a dead man's motives, but to offer a perspective on what that loss has meant to him.

"How has Charlie's death changed me?" he repeats. "Oh, some little things. I've cleared up some insurance questions. And I don't let a day go by without telling my wife and kids I love them." He pauses.

"I used to believe almost in growth for growth's sake," he says. "Charlie never set any goals for his company -- not that I knew of anyway -- but I did. To me, growth was like sex -- an extension of your emotions, a release, something you do because it feels good. Now, I question that. Charlie's gone now. I'm still around. That has to mean something."

This September, Kellogg will join the wedding party at Brian Moore's marriage ceremony. For Charlie Moore's family, friends, and colleagues, the nuptials will be a strictly social event -- the kind of event Moore himself might not have been too comfortable at, yet one that surely would have given him enormous pride to attend.

That has to mean something, too.

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