Remarkably as well as unexpectedly, in a display of good will and good spirits which were not necessarily his most remarkable characteristics, soon thereafter, Stuart did, indeed, took his “valuable” time to make a “two hour visit” to Mochasa, on the site, and took a “tour of the plant” to “have a chance to meet all the staff” and to “closely see the company’s operations”. That was one of the three visits he made to this plant in the remaining 13 years of his reign. The other two didn’t last more that 45 minutes each and occurred while the big bosses of KC and NYC, were visiting our operations. The guy was so lazy that did not bother to visit the Mochasa plant even on two occasions when it got so badly flooded during two monsoon type rainy seasons, that the industrial plant was so badly damaged that operations had to be shut down for cleaning and repairing for almost a full week each time.
I can’t recall one single important management decision coming from his office that would make any significant impact on the operations of Mochasa and its subsidiaries. I don’t know if the “generous” KC management ever made an upward adjustment to Stuart’s annual salary as a recognition “for his new and higher management responsibilities” and for his courageous decision and great spirit of cooperation, if so, he never said it to me, but they certainly never gave me one salary raise specifically associated to my new responsibilities, which indeed were many, and certainly included all those which should have been his. Stuart did not ever change his “style of management” and continued reading newspapers all morning long, he continued watching TV and, of course, he continued busily managing his investment portfolio on a daily basis from his computer terminal. Needless to say, he continued taking his daily nap after lunch, and locking his office door while he was doing so. As I had expected, all the managing of these companies fell in my lap and Stuart continued his unending highly paid vacations.
As reported to me by two of the most important men in the Mochasa middle management, when in mid 1996 I was sent on a special mission to Argentina for almost nine months, many important and urgent decisions that were needed in Mochasa were postponed by Stuart “until Rafi (that was the way Stuart used to call me) is back. The guy was absolutely incapable of making a decision because he was afraid of making the wrong one. At least, that showed a certain (very limited, though) amount of honesty, which he is probably very proud of.
The fact of the matter is that, with the changes that were introduced to Mochasa and its subs, this company began to make (instead of losing) money almost immediately thereafter. Not one single addition was made to the company’s staff, but the existing mid level management responded extremely well to the new ideas and controls introduced. Jorge Lazo, that extremely honest and hard working old timer who was the accountant of Molidor back in 1984 when I came in from the States and whom I promoted to the position of “head of Financial Reporting”, was again promoted to the position of HHRR manager, and was put in charge of implementing the same policies and procedures we had been applying in Molidor, to Mochasa and its subs. It didn’t take too long for me to have everything under control. With the exception of DIBSA, the shrimp producing subsidiary whose operations remained under CONTI’s control, all the other companies in the group became very profitable. DIBSA had been facing very serious operational problems due to the so called “Taura Syndrome”, a serious disease which decimated the shrimp in the ponds and was attributed to the fertilizers utilized in the nearby banana plantations. Their lack of profitability can be attributed to a great extent to “mother nature’s behaviour” but it was also the result of a lack of firm and expedient action from KC’s SEABOARD and NYC’s CONTI to reduce excessive management’s costs and excessive staffing, which were corrected, unbelievably, only fourteen years later and after many repeated calls on my part to do so.
During all these years I was annually evaluated by the KC management and I was invariably told, in writing, that I was the BEST FINANCIAL DIRECTOR of their operations overseas; in addition, I was always rewarded with good “performance bonuses” which ranged from 30 to 50 K. I can’t complain about my compensation, however, for a guy who was so highly regarded and rewarded, one would have thought “this guy needs and deserves a promotion”, and indeed the idea had been discussed and played with several times in KC, however, my “loyal” boss Mr. Stuart manipulated so that idea could be kept in the freezer, supposedly “because I was so much fit and indispensable to the Ecuadorian operations, due to my nationality, that giving me a good salary and good bonuses will keep me happy were I was”. Obviously, he had a personal interest in keeping me in Ecuador because he knew damn well that nobody else in the whole wide world would fit his personal interest and compensate for his unbelievably laziness better than me.
In May 1996, Seaboard decided to buy a Sugar mill operation in Northern Argentina. This operation had been owned by a well known “traditional family” in the Province of Salta, close to the Bolivian border. This purchase was the result of a “bid” open by the Argentine government headed by President Menem, who had started an aggressive program of “privatizations” which was an essential part of his wider "modernization" plan for the Argentine Economy which collapsed a few years later.
In Early May 2, 1996, the Seaboard’s CEO Mr. Harry Bresky personally called me to the hotel in Salt Lake City where I was taking my annual skiing vacations. It was about 11 PM and I was already sleeping. “Hey Rafael”, he said on the phone and I immediately recognized his voice in spite of the fact that it had been almost a year since I had spoken to him the last time. “Hi Harry”, I said, “how are you? and what makes you call me at this time of night”, “Rafael”, he said, “what time is it where you are?”, “its past eleven O’clock”, I said. “Oh, I’m very sorry, you were probably sleeping already and I shouldn’t have left this call for tomorrow” he added. “No problem Harry” I said, “What can I do for you?. and he started to tell me about his project in Argentina and the need he had to have a man in his organization to handle the transition from the hybrid ownership of the Ingenio San Martin del Tabacal” by the Patron Costa family and the Argentine Government to the private ownership by Seaboard Corporation of Shawnee Mission, Kansas, USA. Harry told me he had bough the full ownership of this very large sugar mill for ten million dollars and he needed one of his experienced officers to take charge of the transition. He said he had originally though that Joel Stuart would be the man and had spoken to him to do the job, but after many arguments about how important his presence in Ecuador was, he had suggested that I should be the man for the job, “but only for a short period of time, because I was extremely important, for the Ecuadorian Operations too”. “Rafael”, Harry said, “I have to take Joel's’' word and that is why I’m calling you tonight. “I need you in Argentina by not later that next Monday”. I said “Harry, I’m a good soldier, and you are the commander of this ship”, I’ll do as you have requested. I’ll be in Buenos Aires by next Monday. Harry did not hang up until after he said to me; “Rafael, I know I’m cutting your vacations short”, but, don’t you worry, I fully appreciate your sense of cooperation and I’ll make sure you take two days off for each one you are cutting short!. The next day my wife and I were flying back to Ecuador, and in two more days I was flying to Buenos Aires.
I’ll tell you about my experience in Argentina in my next posting.
In my next posting, THE ARGENTINA MISSION
