Remembering People and Their Stories!

It’s Wednesday and I want to pause and remember a couple of individuals whose paths I was privileged to cross during my sojourn here. This past weekend I reflected on the passing of these two gentlemen that I had the privilege of working with during my nearly 24 years with the big company.

Mr. Baine Kerr passed away last week at age 88. Mr. Kerr was a highly effective leader of my company for many years and helped steer us through some very troubled waters. Mr. Kerr's obituary was one of those very long ones reflecting a tremendous life with many great accomplishments. While he was a high level executive, I did have a number of occasions to relate to him and his duties. In my capacity over all computing and telecommunications I was responsible for publishing the company phone directory. We saved a huge amount of money by bringing this directory in house but that meant my people were responsible for its accuracy. We had a young man named Kerr who worked in one of our programming groups and due to a missed error, a new directory had he and Mr. Baine Kerr’s numbers substituted for each other. This was after weeks of painstaking checking including being checked by the executive support staff. However, it was a big time mistake and it caused some grief and I thought at the time it might cost me my job before it was all over. (Just so you know, my boss wasn’t happy about it at all! They tend not to like being thumped on top of the head over something one of their groups do.)

A second remembrance had to do with a huge lawsuit where my company won the largest single settlement from another company ever awarded in U.S. history. Mr. Kerr had helped shepherd the proceedings during an 18-month period of legal battles. When the company received the settlement funds Mr. Kerr was awarded a special bonus of 10 million dollars for his efforts along with another principal in the company who received the same amount. I was fortunate enough at that time to be in a special awards program but was very sad when I received notice that the windfall proceeds from the settlement would not be considered for calculating the award amounts. While I was very much okay with the very large awarded bonuses, but leaving us out, now how wrong was that? Sure, we didn’t show up at court each day but my group did provide all the computing and telecom services needed as well as working around the clock on special data gathering efforts. Oh well. Later, a disgruntled executive left the company and sued over his being excluded from any of these proceeds. His case was based on the fact that some did, in fact, receive awards based on the settlement; therefore, he contended it was unfair to exclude others who were in line to receive benefits through this special compensation awards program.

This lawsuit also went on for several years. I had left the company before it was concluded but became EXTREMELY interested in its outcome. It would have meant a very sizable sum plus interest to me if the court had ruled in his favor, but alas, in the end, the Federal Appeals Court ruled that pretty much a company can do what it wants to do especially as it relates to determining bonus money and who will and will not get any. In the end, I feel blessed to have been in that program at all since only about 100 out of more than 10,000 employees were selected to participate, and it did pay out some nice awards over time, but with all due respect to Mr. Kerr, I think I along with many others had also labored hard and long during that difficult time and should have been included in the rewards, but, God had a better, different plan, which His different is always a better plan, and I thank Him for blessing the way He has.

The other fellow who passed away last week was Jack Mitchell, 85. Jack was a WW2 veteran and a senior computer analyst that I worked with for 15 or more years. He was part of a huge gas distribution company that we merged into our parent and he came with the deal, having to relocate from Shreveport, Louisiana, in the late 1960’s. He was an expert in the programs written in archaic computer languages that kept the gas related activities going. One of those programs was a billing cycle that ran nightly, producing thousands of postcard bills. It was an old system and Jack and one other fellow were the only two people who could work on it when it broke, which it often did. When we would call Jack at 2 a.m., in the morning, his wife would tell us that he was not at home. We could tell she was very uncomfortable telling us this because we knew that Jack had never not been at home in his life. He just did not want to come in and work on those programs. He was a character and he always said exactly what he meant. (In some ways he reminded me of my grandfather, Paw Paw Mac.) He retired about 5 years before I left the company and I lost touch with him. In reading his obituary, it was good to see Jack’s many contributions to his community and his Church mentioned. I was particularly struck in how beloved he was as reflected in the comments made by his family, especially his grandchildren. One of his granddaughters expressed how much she will miss him and how blessed she was that he had been able to enjoy her child, his great grandson. Now that’s a fitting tribute at the end to any life and I most certainly can identify with it! …..More later.