Memoirs of a child of the past century - 12. Chapter 12 : being my own boss and owner of a large number of companies

In this chapter, I first go back in time by resuming the course of my professional life before the death of my father.

On June 30, 1968, I left my definitive function as Technical Director of the USNC , transferring to my own account all the current mandates. I was leaving on very good terms with the leaders of the USNC, having, before leaving, put in place the framework for the continuation of the construction activity of oil depots.

After two months of vacation, 15 days in Italy at the sea and the rest in Vercorin, I set up my own office in a building in the center of the city of Lausanne, two small rooms, a reception with a secretary desk and my own management office, with a large conference table and twelve chairs. The whole family took part in the move. The office was not far from the school of the two oldest children. I could easily pick them up when they left school for lunch and very often we would eat together at noon.

Feeling my own master, at last, was a curious mixture of feelings. I was free to act, to have sole responsibility for ‘rotating the box '(a French expression :’faire tourner la boîte’, meaning ‘leading the firm’). Namely organizing my time, sharing it between the needs of the moment, fulfilling to my best ability existing mandates and, at the same time, worrying about the future and seeking new ones.

My first concern was to establish a business plan .For those who do not know what it is about, a business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for achieving them. I found, in my archive, the business plan established in July 1968, for the next 12 months. I was more than careful: CHF 100,000 in fees, operating expenses of CHF 55,000 .- and a net income of 45,000 francs , or about twice my final yearly pay with the USNC. By the end of September 1968, I had realized, and even exceeded, my goals.

I was really in a good mood ! The main problem was to manage my time so that I could still spend time with my family.

To start, I searched out all the people my activities for the SIA and the JCES,had led me to meet and who, by their functions, had a decision-making power and were likely to need my services. I did not have to wait long.

Some examples of mandates that were committed to me very quickly are :

* Reorganization of the research department, of a company manufacturing electrical machines, with more than 120 researchers,

* Reorganization of a hosiery factory, producing branded articles for children, following the death of the company owner.

* Coordination of a group of several architects responsible for building numerous schools, and rationalizing their methods of collaboration,

* Technical planning of the realization of a large hotel complex.

A new mandate was soon added, that led to a very important extension of my activities: the coordination of the different participants to the construction of the technical infrastructures of the University of Lausanne.

The University buildings, in the old town of Lausanne had become too small and State authorities decided to transfer a significant part on raw land in the suburbs to realize on it a real campus. The architect in charge of planning and carrying out the transfer was an old acquaintance. We had been both involved in various planning studies as part of our activities with the JCES.

To assist him in his office, he confided to me the task to recruit, to organize and to coordinate a multidisciplinary team of engineers including various specialists ,in order to carry out different networks, for the distribution of electric power, for computer cables, for water supply and for sewage , to which were later added a study of a connection to an experimental nuclear power plant north of Lausanne.

The design and construction of these technical infrastructures should extend over several years and the team should be able to hold together for the duration of the work. So I started looking for independent engineers, qualified to this major operation.

I was very lucky. As I narrated in the chapter 9, my active participation in the SIA, the professional organization of graduate engineers and architects, had put me in contact with a company of civil engineers whose manager had become a close friend . He was therefore the first member of my team. I found the second member under the family of my wife. One of her cousins was the director of a leading power engineering consulting firm, who had worked in team with other specialists in the study and implementation of a large hospital complex in a nearby 'canton'. By joining our team, he brought all other specialists with whom he had participated in this study, engineers in sanitary engineering and heating.

And so we formed a group of six engineers, theoretically under the direction of the architect responsible for the realization of the technical infrastructures. But only the starting point of our study was set by the architect: the position of the various buildings to be connected, the points of connection to the urban distribution systems, the volume of the future buildings, the number of students expected. As for us, we had to do all the real work : to study, to carry out and to build a detailed internal network, with the connection points to the buildings and to the urban networks.

campus of the new university

My role as coordinator of the group, responsible for optimizing the constraints of each specialty and if necessary to arbitrate conflicts between the various technical specialties was something new. It should have been the work of the architect to ensure this coordination, but he dealt rather with the political relations and the other architects responsible for implementation of the new buildings. So I had to take charge of coordinating, with the corollary of the effective management of the group.

I was able to devote myself completely to the technical part of my work, which unfortunately led me to neglect a bit the contacts with my children and forget everything that was not part of my professional concerns. I had to regret it later.

Our first task, was to solve an important problem. The campus building was to be on a large wooded lot near the lake, about 3 km long and 2 km wide. There were around ten buildings to be constructed, around the entire perimeter, and separated by green spaces and groves of trees. Connecting all these buildings with a meshed network of pipes and cables in a grid was almost impossible.

After several days of reflection, with the team, I found an acceptable solution, both in terms of the simplicity of the plot and of the costs of construction - to realize the backbone of the network through a single tunnel, large enough to allow access to a construction truck, and traversing the perimeter from west to east. This solution has two important advantages: simplicity of construction and easy maintenance.

Ensureing coordination, both within the team and with all others (architects, engineers, state authorities, management of the University, etc..) was not an easy task. I spent most of my time preparing and conducting sessions with, sometimes more than a dozen participants. The experience gained in the JCES was very useful for this activity.

With a contract of this importance, along with the other mandates (see list above), which continued to occupy part of my time, I had almost no time for family and leisure. My weeks often exceeded 60 hours of work and I began seriously asking myself questions about my personal organization. With the addition oft the periods of military service (about one month per year), I absolutely had to find a solution. I hired a secretary, but she could help me only in administrative tasks and her
presence did not compensate the time I lost to preparing her work and explaining to her how to do it.

It was my wife who found the solution. She not only took over management of the household, hiring a young girl from the German part of Switzerland as domestic help and assistant with the children (she had, herself held the same position in Zurich when we met!) , but mainly, she took charge of a major part of my business: public relations - contacts with the political and technical environment.

Thanks to the various mandates that authorities of the State had entrusted to me and, thanks to my good relations with officials of the Board of Spatial Planning, I had acquired a certain notoriety. I had to develop it if I wanted to use it in order to obtain new mandates. This was mostly the work of my wife. By developing her contacts with the wives of political and business men around me, by organizing lunches and informal meetings etc, she created the relationships required to increase the reputation of her husband, as a successful engineer.

I was able to devote myself completely to the technical part of my work, which unfortunately led me to neglect my children and forget everything that was not part of my professional concerns. I had to regret it later.

Looking back at this period, I had no real love life outside the family! My friendships consisted only of men, who I met as part of my professional environment. No women, primarily because they didn’t not interest me and also because of the jealousy of my wife ! Only much later, during trips abroad alone, I was I able to give rein to my dual nature, mainly through casual encounters in appropriate locations.

To describe this part of my life, ranging from 1970 to 1978, is not easy. So many things happened in so little time!

We must remember the economic and political situation of the 70s: the economic boom of the 60s slowly coming to an end. The Yom Kippur War and the first oil shock (1973) drew the attention of business leaders to the opportunities offered by the Near East and North Africa. The start of computing offered development opportunities, previously unknown. In Switzerland, dynamic companies were looking increasingly to export and to open new markets worldwide.

In my case, my economic activities were growing very (too?) fast and in five directions at the same time :

- The development of my management consulting company with operations in Switzerland and abroad,

- The creation of a big Swiss engineering company with other Swiss partners,

- The opening of a similar company in Algeria, in partnership with the Algerian government,

- The acquisition from the French actor Michel Simon, of his film distribution company (of which my father was associate director before his death) ,

- The creation of a new management consulting firm in Paris, with French partners,

- My personal participation in the activity of various small Swiss companies, as a member of their Board.

Each of these branches constituted, in itself, its own challenge. Obviously I would never have been able to reach the goals I set for myself alone. I was surrounded by a significant number of people, friends, associates, employees. Takingstock of their roles, enjoying more or less their actions, and - distinguishing true and false friends, will be subject of a next chapter, even more important to me than this one. I often did wrong by listening to flatterers and ignoring the warnings of real friends, regarding some risky decisions I took too often.

The business operations presented here separately actually took place simultaneously. During all these years, I shared more or less of my time between them, trying to be everywhere at the same time, without knowing always how to distinguish the essential from the superfluous. Following my desires, I let myself be guided by them to decide what was urgent and what was not, including some times the erroneous suggestions of my colleagues.

I had a natural tendency to trust others, and my choices have not always been wise. I often acted too late and I ended up paying for it dearly.

One of the major projects was the creation of a large Swiss engineering company ( and the opening of a similar company in Algeria, in partnership with the Algerian government - see this part of the story in a next chapter).

The hours spent on the construction site of Dorigny with different engineers constituting our group ,led us to quickly materialize that collaboration by creating a new company, The Community of Technical Studies SA, (known as the CET) in which each of the six of us had the same number of shares. All the other partners being incorporated (ltd)), I felt obliged to create my own Ltd company.

Having inherited from my father (passed away in late 1969) a more than respectable fortune (approximately CHF 450,000 at the time, equivalent to approximately USD 1,000,000 today), I had the means to satisfy my ambitions. Among my engineer friends, one of them, Aldo R., had even more ambitions than me. He had big plans ( even too big. It ruined him much later).

He suggested to me that I increase my weight in the CET, by incorporating a company of the same order of magnitude as his, which occupied nearly 30 employees. It was much too big for me alone. He therefore proposed to bring together as

minority shareholders, young qualified but not wealthy engineers, who could work under me, and that I should pay myself in their names the amounts required for the subscription of their shares, considering it as a long term loan, which they could later pay back from a part of their benefits of the company.

This proposal pleased me and that's how we created the ‘Grossfeld Consulting Engineers Ltd’.

Thinking back on this period, I think I made four fundamental errors, partly from a more or less conscious desire to prove to my late father (who died late 1969) that I was as capable as him of succeeding and getting rich, and partly because of the belief that I was surrounded by only honest friends, as much concerned about my wellbeing as about theirs.

These four errors are:

-Believeing that the talent of command and coordination, which I demonstrated during my military service and in my activities at the JCES, could also be exercised with the same efficiency in a wider context. For example, in hostile economic and political environments, facing fierce competition and the duplicity of my opponents, who often claimed to be my friends,

-Imagining that I was capable of being the leader of a large company, to lead and deal effectively with communication problems and internal conflicts between employees, to possess the capacity of knowing the characters and capabilities of people under me, to be able to judge the qualities and flaws of my partners and my clients,

-Thinking that my experiences in the circle of my first activities, when I was acting alone and with few people in front of me, could be extended successfully to my new activities, more diverse and complicated; thinking I could do as well on a larger scale as I did in a narrower context. I should have known that the leader of a small business does not always become a good manager of a large group,

-Forgetting how to distinguish between good advice from neutral persons, seeking only my good, and bad advice from people interested in pursuing my willingness to increase their powers and enrich themselves at my expense.

'Small is beautiful ". I should never have forgotten this adage!

For the next chapter, my various activities will not be treated logically. Therefore for clarity, I present here again the various operations of this period :

- The development of my management consulting company with operations in Switzerland and abroad
- The creation of a large Swiss engineering company with new partners in Switzerland, France and Germany
- The opening of a similar company in Algeria, in partnership with the Algerian government
- The purchase from the French actor Michel Simon a Swiss film distribution company, of which my father was associate director before his death, and its development in Switzerland and France
- The creation of a new management consulting firm in Paris with French partners
- My personal participation in the activity of various small Swiss companies, as a member of their Board

These business operations presented here separately have actually taken place simultaneously. During all these years, I shared more or less of my time between them, trying to be everywhere simultaneously, without knowing always how to distinguish the essential from the superfluous. Following my desires, I let myself be guided by them to decide what was urgent and what was not, including some time the erroneous suggestions of my colleagues

I had a natural tendency to trust others, and my choices have not always been wise. I often acted too late and I ended up paying it dearly.

The hours spent on the construction site of Dorigny with different engineers constituting our group led us to quickly materialize that collaboration by creating a new company, The Community of Technical Studies SA, (said the CET) in which each of the six of us had the same number of shares. All the other partners being incorporated (ltd)), I felt obliged to create my own Ltd company.

Having inherited from my father (passed away in late 1969) a more than respectable fortune (approximately CHF 450,000 at the time, equivalent to approximately USD 1,000,000 today), I had the means to satisfy my ambitions. Among my friends engineers, one of them, Aldo R., had even more ambitions than me. He had big plans ( even too big, it ruined him much later).

He suggested to me to increase my weight in the CET, to incorporate a company of the same order of magnitude as his, which occupied nearly 30 employees. It was much too big for me alone. He therefore proposed to bring together as minority shareholders young qualified but few wealthy engineers, who could work under me, and that I should pay the amounts required for the subscription of their shares, amounts reimbursable from a small part of their revenues in the company.

This proposal pleased me and that's how we created the ‘Grossfeld Consulting Engineers ltd’.

By unfolding before my eyes the film of the seventies, I realize the importance of this period, both in my private and professional life. There has been clearly a before and after. Until 1969, I was a young and dynamic executive, always depending on a leader, a model employee, living in the suburbs a modest apartment and leading a stable life for 15 years. From spring 1970, I had at my disposal a very substantial fortune, with a bright future ahead of me. I was surrounded by many (true and false) friends, I had become an independent business owner and the possibilities in Switzerland and abroad seemed endless.

Suddenly, thanks especially through my money and my companies, the "high society" of Lausanne regarded me as one of theirs and I had become more 'respectable'. But deep inside myself, I remained the same naive person, taking at face value any suggestions that was presented, without ever being suspicious, being proud and honored by the flatteries of my new friends. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, I see clearer on the course of that period, marked especially by a boundless confidence in myself and my entourage.

If I appeal to the remains of Latin that I keep in memory of my college years, two quotes come to my memory which sum up all this period:

Arx Tarpeia Capitoli proxima (usually translated by the phrase "The Tarpeian Rock is near the Capitol").
A Latin quotation used to mean that after the honors the forfeiture may come quickly (in English: one's fall from grace can come swiftly).

Donec eris felix, multos numerabis amicos, tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris
English: As long as you are happy you will many friends count. When the times come with a lot of clouds, will be left alone.