My First Article - from 1978

For some years now I have been paying to maintain a domain name of my own name: duncancmcdougall.com.  Though it was originally intended to become a site from which people could access me in my consulting role, with my growing involvement internationally over the past six years, I have not been focused on consulting, and the site's maintenance has taken on a different purpose.  It is the only place on the web where my older articles can be found.

Last weekend (while reorganizing my computer's overloaded hard drive!) I discovered a .pdf file of my very first published article, from the November-December, 1978, issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR).  With the help of my son (and webmaster) Jesse, that article is now found at the link that follows this post.  But please, before going there, read its story.

The article is the outcome of a visit of my Muse during an all night hospital vigil with my young wife Shirley, who was experiencing serious abdominal pain in the middle of her second pregnancy.  Shirl had been visiting her parents' home in Westborough, Massachusetts, that week, while I was teaching a summer-school class at Plymouth State College (now PSU) in New Hampshire. When  I received a call from my sister-in-law Joan Kimball telling me that Shirl was going to the Framingham Union Hospital, I drove south at once to be with her.  We all feared that the pregnancy might be in jeopardy, but, thank God, Jesse was doing fine in there.  However, Shirl was in excruciating pain, and was unable to eat or drink anything without losing it a few minutes later.  A series of diagnoses were hypothesized, and ruled out, one by one.  The one my Dad, Mac, had told me over the telephone to have them check for, a bowel obstruction, was not seriously considered at the hospital's emergency room, as Shirl had been examined with a stethoscope, and had been said to have "normal bowel sounds."  So, Shirl was admitted for the night.  Because of her pregnancy, the hospital's emergency room doctors chose not to take an x-ray of her abdomen, a decision with which Shirl concurred, so as not to risk harming our baby.

As Shirl lay sedated that night, I, her husband, spending the night at her bedside in a state of worry and sleepless nervousness, borrowed a pad of lined paper from the nurses' station, and with a borrowed pencil, wrote the article that I called "The Corporate Ratchet."

On the following Tuesday, after Shirl had remained in the hospital for four agonizing days, and was in danger of starving to death if the problem were not solved soon, Basil Kimball, Shirl's father, called an older surgeon that he knew from Worcester, and asked him to examine her.  That 80 year-old doctor examined Shirl, said he suspected an obstructed bowel, and asked Shirl to allow one x-ray.  The x-ray revealed the obstruction.  The doctor operated within the hour, and a week later Shirl was back on solid food, as good as new.  Praise God for Shirl's father's wisdom.

A week or so later, I typed up the linked article (below), and sent it to the HBR. The HBR editors accepted it for their then-new section of short thought-pieces called, "Ideas for Action." They changed almost nothing, except for the title.

Postscripts

• My Muse visits me at strange times.  But in 1978 we were in a time of 12% per year inflation, so I guess she knew what she was doing.  I later learned that this article was being assigned to some Harvard MBA students in a management accounting course.
• Tomorrow we shall be driving to France to honor Basil Kimball's service during World War II.  It is fitting that we do so.  Basil loved his family, loved his country, and lived a righteous life in service to God.  May Basil rest in peace, knowing that we in his family love him still, and hold him in the highest regard.

Link to the article:
http://www.duncancmcdougall.com/articles/the-corporate-ratchet-effect-on-spiraling-inflation/.

A Boeing Clipper Story

Back in the early 1990s, an older Campton resident, Mr. Bisson, used to swim with us in the Plymouth State College pool, early in the mornings.   (This was years before we became Plymouth State University.)

One morning after the swim, I got to talking with Mr. Bisson.  I learned that he was a retired Pan American Airways pilot. Obviously, he was quite old, so I asked him when he had started with Pan Am.  He told me that it was in the Mid-Thirties.  

I knew a bit about aviation history, and wanted to display the fact, in order to learn more.  So, I asked him, "What were you flying in those days, Boeing Clippers?"  No, Mr. Bisson said, "I started in Sikorsky flying boats.  The Clippers came along later." 

Pan Am's Sikorsky S-42 seaplane, Courtesy of http://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/32807

I followed up with, "What were you flying when you retired?"  Mr. Bisson replied, "747s."

(Photo courtesy of Bing Images.)

I next asked this man of such long experience a question that had crossed my mind on several occasions over the years.  "What did you and those flying boats do during World War II?'

Captain Bisson, whose first name escapes me, told me, "We were impressed into the U.S. Navy, and given commissions.  I then spent the rest of the war flying from Miami to Brazil, from Brazil to Africa, and back.  On the return trips we were loaded with barrels of some sticky black stuff.  We had no idea what it was.  I learned after the war that it was 'pitchblende,' a uranium ore.  It was taken by rail from Miami to Oak Ridge Tennesee for refinement as part of the Manhattan Project."

Why am I posting this today?  Well, you can thank my good friend Col. William R. (Bill) Benoit, U. S. Army Aviator (Retired).  A couple of days ago, Bill forwarded to me the following story.  I do not know who wrote the piece, but I am thankful to him or her, as well as to Bill Benoit.  

---

From: William Benoit
To: Duncan McDougall ;
Sent: Saturday, February 1, 2014 5:12 PM
Subject: Fwd: FW: Boeing Flying Clipper

 The Boeing Flying Clipper

Those were the days!

If You Thought Air Travel Was Luxurious In The 1970s, Check Out What It Was Like Aboard The WW2-Era Boeing Clipper

The Boeing Company
Clipper passengers took their meals at real tables, not their seats.
For most travelers in the 21st century, flying is a dreary experience, full of inconvenience, indignity, and discomfort.
That wasn ' t the case in the late 1930s, when those with the money to afford Trans-oceanic flight got to take the Boeing Model 314, better known as the Clipper.
Even Franklin Roosevelt used the plane, celebrating his 61st birthday on board.
Between 1938 and 1941, Boeing built 12 of the jumbo planes for Pan American World Airways.
The 314 offered a range of 3,500 miles — enough to cross either the Atlantic or Pacific —and room for 74 passengers onboard.
Of course, modern aviation offers an amazing first class experience (and it ' s a whole lot safer), but nothing in the air today matches the romanticism of crossing the ocean in the famed Clipper.
Thanks to the Pan Am Historical Foundation for sharing its photos. The foundation is currently working on a documentary about Pan American World Airways and the adventure of the flying boat age. Find out more here.

The Model 314 ' s nickname Clipper came from an especially fast type of sailing ship, used in the 19th century.

Pan Am Historical Foundation
The ship analogy was appropriate, as the Clipper landed on the water, not runways.

The Boeing Company
Here's a diagram of the different areas of the plane.

The Boeing Company
[Source: Boeing]
On Pan Am flights, passengers had access to dressing rooms and a dining salon that could be converted into a lounge or bridal suite.

The Boeing Company
The galley served up meals catered from four-star hotels.

The Boeing Company
If you want to sit at a table to eat with other people these days, you have to fly in a private jet.

The Boeing Company
There was room for a crew of 10 to serve as many as 74 passengers.

The Boeing Company
On overnight flights, the 74 seats could be turned into 40 bunks for comfortable sleeping.

The Boeing Company
The bunk beds came with curtains for privacy.

Pan Am Historical Foundation
On the 24-hour flights across the Atlantic, crew members could conk out on these less luxurious cots.

Pan Am Historical Foundation
Unlike some modern jets that come with joysticks, the Clipper had controls that resembled car steering wheels.

Pan Am Historical Foundation
Navigating across the ocean used to require more manpower in the air.

Pan Am Historical Foundation
The lavatory wasn ' t too fancy, but it did have a urinal — something you never see in today ' s commercial jets, where space is at a premium.

Pan Am Historical Foundation
The ladies lounge had stools where female passengers could sit and do their makeup.

Pan Am Historical Foundation
The Clipper made its maiden Trans-Atlantic voyage on June 28, 1939.

The Boeing Company
But once the US entered World War II, the Clipper was pressed into service to transport materials and personnel. In 1943, President Franklin Roosevelt celebrated his 61st birthday on board.

Pan Am Historical Foundation [Source: Boeing]     

Kathleen Brennan's Art (And a Non-Coincidence)

In My Class

In the spring of 2011, an MBA student named Matthew Brennan enrolled in my New Ventures & Entrepreneurship course at Plymouth State University.  In that course, Matt wrote a business plan for his wife's business, Kathleen Brennan Fine Art, which is located at their home here in rural New Hampshire.  Kathleen is a versatile artist, though her most significant awards and recognition have come for her sculptures.

After the course had ended, Matt and Kathleen kindly invited me to their home to see her studio.  I accepted, and rode down there one day on my old 1969 BMW motorcycle.  We had a wonderful lunch, and I, a fine art major at Amherst many years ago, got a huge kick out of seeing how one made bronze statues, a multistage process involving many different manual, tactile, spacial and visual talents.

At the Show

Last month, while Shirl was in Colorado, a group of friends and I attended the original musical production "Marking the Moment" at PSU.  Each year the Educational Theater Collaborative (ETC) puts on a January musical, casting talent from local schools, high schools, and community members, as well as from the University.  This tradition is now approaching twenty years old.  In the past they have done popular shows for kids, such as "The Wizard of Oz."  But this year they created a special show, written and scored to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Town of Plymouth, New Hampshire, back in 1763.

PSU graduate student Roxana (Roxy) Fera (din Sibiu), who is presently living with us, was a dancer and chorus member in the show, so all the resident Romanian students joined the party, as well as my Spanish professor friend Eric Cintrón, and Prof. and Mrs. Michael Fischler.  Fortunately, Roxy's sister and mother were also able to attend, as were her nephew and two nieces, as that branch of the Fera/DeMaggio family is now living in New Hampshire, as well.

It was a grand show!

After the Show

On the way out of Silver Cultural Arts Center, I stopped into the room just off the lobby where there were a number of fundraising efforts underway.  The ETC is a non-profit organization, supported by ticket sales and donations from well-wishers, and from the sale of T-Shirts and the like at their event.  So. I bought a $12 T-shirt, and told the ladies to keep the change from my $20 bill.  "Oh, no!" one of the ladies exclaimed, let us give you eight raffle tickets, instead.  I looked around the room, and put all eight of my tickets into the bucket next to this statue, which I recognized as Kathleen Brennan's work.

On Tuesday of last week I received an e-mail telling me that I had won "Synthesis," by Kathleen Brennan.  I am thrilled to have it here, on display at Hotel New Hampshire.

Lucky?  Maybe.  But, I do not believe in coincidences.

"Synthesis" by Kathleen Brennan

Logan Airport Non-coincidence

Alina Sime is in the black suit with the red Chute, lower-left.
(All Photos from Alina Sime's Facebook page.)

Last night at Boston, I picked up our latest Plymouth State University MBA student from UBB/FSEGA.  His name is Daniel Rusu.  He is from Cluj, and will soon be working as a graduate assistant in the College of Business Administration.  (Perhaps, dear Romanian Reader, you and a partner should apply for next year's class!)

Alina and friends

At the airport, while waiting for the arriving passengers outside of the Customs area, I stood with a group of skydivers identifiable as such by the bat-suits they were wearing ... the Pepperell (Massachuseets) Skydiving Team to be exact.  They were waiting for a teammate to return from Europe, where he had been in a competition.  I mentioned to a young woman in the group that I was waiting for a Romanian MBA student to arrive.
 
She said, "Oh, I am from Romania."  Her name is Adriana.  She lived 19 years in Galaţi before coming to Colby College in Maine, and going on to graduate school at the U. of Maryland.  We talked a bit about Romania, and I told her about my UBB-FSEGA student, Alina Sime, the Romanian women's spot-diving champion of 2008, valedictorian of the Englishline, also degreed in environmental engineering, and now an environmental consultant in Bucharest, a wife, a mother, and still active in her favorite sport.

Alina Meda Sime hitting the spot.

I am proud of Alina, one of my very best FSEGA students, and a fine young woman, indeed!

Pepperell Skydiver Adriana's teammate arrived bearing a trophy, and the Pepperell Skydivers erupted in cheers.  I smiled with them, and considered the probabilities.   (There are no coincidences.)

Alina and David at the Airport (Clinceni?)

Undergraduate Business Programs (and Other Evils?)

Late last week my friend Daniel Moore sent this note to the business faculty at Plymouth State University's College of Business Andinistration (CoBA):
---------------------------------------------

Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 9:09:07 AM
Subject: Something to think about

People,
This little WSJ article might suggest that we take some time to ponder our purpose and curriculum: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304072004577323754019227394.html
Daniel
Daniel P. Moore, PhD
Vice Provost

-----------------------------------------------
Please check out that link.  [In case it has expired, it was an article entitled, "Wealth or Waste? Rethinking the Value of a Business Major." It makes the time-honored argument that teaching business at the undergraduate level is an exercise in futility, that does the students little good.*]  

Here was my response to Dan and to my CoBA colleagues:
-----------------------------------------------

Dan:

My dear old Dad would have applauded that WSJ article.  When I was eighteen, he refused to let me apply to an aeronautical engineering school, saying, "Son, I'll help you go for an engineering degree, if you still want to, after you've completed four years of liberal arts college."  His mantra was, "The purpose of college is to teach us to think."

My bachelor's degree in fine arts did not stop both General Motors and Ford from offering me jobs as a manufacturing trainee early in 1966.  I chose GM.  Two-and-a-half years later I applied for my MBA program because I realized that, as a somewhat successful supervisor at Chevrolet Flint Manufacturing, I still didn't know a debit from a debenture, and that I had to learn more about business if I were to advance, and be worthy of doing so.  I had been a C-average student in college.  By contrast, in graduate school, I did well.  Why?  Every course in that two-year MBA program made sense.  I understood why each was in the curriculum.  I knew I needed them all.  And that was after I'd worked for only three years post-college.  Experiencing the problems of managing on a GM factory floor had made all the difference.

Was it  H. L. Mencken who wrote words to this effect?  "If I were able to eliminate three evils from the world, they would be cancer, war, and undergraduate schools of business."

Frankly, Dan, I have struggled with my philosophical concerns about the efficacy of teaching business to inexperienced kids ever since joining PSC in 1976.  What I decided was that if it is going to be done, then it had best be done well.  Both here and at Boston University (where I taught operations management from 1980 through 1988), I threw Harvard Business School (and other) case studies into my courses, from which act I learned that the students at first struggled, then thrived on the challenges that were presented by those real-world decision problems.  The human and organizational context provided by the cases gave life to business terms, and the decision focus of the classroom discussions constituted vicarious experience that made the theories presented in the textbooks more readily understandable.  Out of this experience came my ongoing teaching policy:

Problems first, theories after!**

We have the teaching talent in CoBA to make our undergraduate business programs excellent opportunities for our students to learn to think.  I'd like to see us begin a series of pedagogical discussions on how best to connect with our students, in order to improve their ability to grasp the subject matter of business, in all its complexity.  I hereby volunteer to open that program by offering an initial pedagogical discussion meeting within the next three weeks.

Duncan

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*To be fair, I must add that other recent articles have reported that business majors still do better in both job placement prior to graduation and starting salaries than do all other newly minted graduates except engineers. 
** With thanks to the late Arnold Boris Arons, Ph.D., my extraordinary physics professor at Amherst College in 1961-62, who used to exclaim, "Ideas first!  Names after!"

Romanian+Panamanian+New Hampshirian Noncoincidence of the Day

Marion and Melinda

As I was about to take a dip in the rooftop pool at Melinda's building in Casco Viejo, Melinda and another woman came onto the terrace looking for me.  Standing in my swimsuit, I met Marion MacGillivray.  I soon learned that Marion is the woman who sold Contadora Island Inn to Silvio and Melinda, after operating it herself for about eight years.  Then, Meli told me that Marion used to live in New Hampshire.  "Where in New Hampshire?" I asked.  She replied, "On Stinson Lake. I used to drive often over Ellsworth Hill and into Campton."  We had lunch.  Marion, it turns out, is an American citizen of Scottish birth and South African upbringing, and has had a fascinating life.  Much of it has been devoted to education, especially of troubled former foster children, which is what her school did on Stinson Lake.  She is a friend of my PSU colleague Prof. Scott Meyer of the sociology department, who is also a friend of Shirl.  So, my Romanian former teaching assistant has bought a Panamanian hotel from my former New Hampshire neighbor.  Hmmm.

La Mulți Ani, România!

1 December 2011, Campton, New Hampshire (Photo by Tarcea)

"At Alba Iulia on December 1, 1918, the treaty was signed creating the union of Transilvania, Wallachia and Moldavia that forms modern-day Romania."

I hereby wish all Romanians, everywhere, a

  Happy    National      Day!     

Last year I spent 1 December in Alba Iulia with friends Valer and Leonina  from UBB-Cluj, and with Leonina's good friend Andreea, who lives there in "Alba."

Today Valer is an MBA candidate at Plymouth State University and works as a graduate assistant here in New Hampshire.  He and I will "celebrate" tomorrow by driving to Boston University's Goldman School of Dental Medicine, where I shall have three surgical implants installed where three of my front teeth used to be.  Afterwards, we shall go to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Valer has an appointment to meet a Bentley University business professor to discuss Vali's interest in their Ph.D. program.  Please wish us both, "Noroc!"

Life goes on!

Deja Vu All Over Again (as Yogi Berra is said to have said)

To long-time followers of my blogs, this picture may look familiar.  Back in 2009, I was congratulating the same fellow upon his graduation from UBB-FSEGA, in Cluj, Romania.  But this time the event is the 2011 Graduate Commencement Exercises at Plymouth State University (PSU) in Plymouth, New Hampshire, U.S.A.

If you know Domnule MICAN Alexandru, BS, MBA, you know that he is intelligent and diligent.  Those character traits have earned him high regard among us on the faculty of the PSU College of Business Administration.  I hope you will join me in congratulating Alex on a job well done. 

Godspeed, Alexandru!  Wherever life takes you, I know you will earn the respect of your peers.  Well done at Plymouth State!