Streamlining

In an amazingly painless and swift move, our COO (Glen Gates)and Director of Finance (Lynn LaFrance) both quit on Thursday. How did I find out? I was passed a note. Seriously, a note. No corporate teleconferece, not a phone call, not even a mass-distribution email! I feel like I'm in Juinor High again :-)


Although I have not seen their letters or talked to them since their departure, I believe this was a good move for both guys. Glen was extremely ineffective in his position, partly due to the lack of necessity for a COO. To be honest, we need people that work, not just people that manage. He could have done both, but he didn't. Glen was also fond of playing games instead of having open and honest communication. I wish him luck in his next venture.


I actually talked with Lynn a few days before his resignation. We discussed my reasons for moving to Titusville and creating a new position working for FSRI. Although low salary and lack of benefits (health insurance, retirement, etc.) were factors in our choice to leave Ft. Lauderdale, Jen and I are both ready for the next step in our lives. We have learned amazing things here at ZERO-G and would not trade our time here for anything! In fact, we will both still be working for ZERO-G after the move (me part-time and Jen full-time until she lands the engineering gig). We both fully intend to continue to support the mission of the company and contribute to the development of the personal spaceflight industry.

That said, I do have some 'unresolved issues' with the ZERO-G.

• We do not communicate effectively.
  
• We waste time and energy on low-priority tasks.
  
• We wait until the last minute to spend money, thus spendin even more to get what we need where we need it on time.
  
• There is not a concensus on where the company is going and how to get there.
  
• We operate velow the bare minimum of staff and salary at all times.
• We do not treat all people in the company equally.

Every company has areas that could use improvement--ours is no different. Lynn, unfortunately, saw only problems. And he saw them compounding. He was frustrated that no one was taking his ideas and using them to 'fix' the problems. Lynn brought a lot of knowledge and experience to the company and felt that he was largely being ignored--no matter how loudly or frequently he tried to give advice. I understand how frustrating and uninspiring that can be.

Lynn and I both have a "loss of faith in upper management". I do not know about Lynn, but I still have faith in "the team". I know the operations team will keep fighting to stay alive no matter what decisions are made at the top. My job now is to help them from the outside by providing new resources and ideas that were not previously available to me. I will work smarter and harder. I invite Lynn to do the same. He is a great asset to the company, whether he recognizes the effect of his contributions or not.