1980s

This is the last decade to begin pre-kids. Kyle was born Feb 1984, Lance May 1986. Everything changes once you have children.

I really enjoyed my first five years at Haskins & Sells from 1975 to 1980. My primary client was Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Co. and I got to know the company inside and out. I was promoted to senior after just two years (the norm is three) and got to personally handle all the most interesting aspects of the KACC audit including Inventory, Investments and income taxes.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was not well suited for becoming an audit manager in 1980 and having to supervise the work of others. That was not my cup of tea. And it showed. I should have left the accounting world as soon as I got my MBA from Cal in June 1981.

But I stuck it out until Aug 1983 when I took the CFO position for a Silicon Valley startup called International Power Technology (IPT). We worked hard and raised a ton of venture capital. But it wasn’t meant to be. We burned up too many gas turbines and disappointed too many project finance partners. By 1987, IPT had been sold to a third party for pennies on the dollar and all that remained was the operations division.

Liz was experiencing some difficulties with her job at Macy’s, so we agreed to look for the next new thing. It may not have been our best decision, but we ended up moving to Minneapolis MN so Liz could start a new job with Dayton Hudson. I was confident I would have no trouble finding work. And I was wrong.

Welcome to the decade of kids, IPT and Minnesota.