Has anyone ever rescued you, figuratively or literally?

I credit Dr. Zimmer, my long-time chiropractor, for rescuing me from severe pain, one of the two miracles in my life.  During a vacation in California, I threw my back out and spent an agonizing day laying in bed, barely able to roll over.  It was the day before returning home and the next morning things were no better and I realized I could never make it down the stairs, drive the car to the airport or tolerate a four-hour plane ride to Ohio.  As I laid there trying to figure out what to do, I thought about the position Dr. Zimmer sometimes puts me in while adjusting my back, that being laying on my side, bottom leg extended, the top of my foot on the other leg tucked up behind my knee, and turning my shoulders in the opposite direction.  This position forces my lower back to push forward.  I assumed that position and laid there for forty-five minutes.  Then I got up, all pain gone, carried two suitcases down the stairs, drove to the airport, and flew home.  Dr. Zimmer, plus some divine intervention, gets the credit for my California rescue.

The Department of Justice gets some credit, along with a pair of CIOs, for a substantial financial rescue late in my career.  I was on track to retire when I turned sixty-six and the house would be paid off.  But then Verso attempted to buy NewPage and become a much larger paper company.  The DOJ stepped in to evaluate their anti-trust concerns and this dragged the acquisition out for about a year.  Needing to retain talent, a few individuals, including myself, were offered a nice chunk of money to stay around.  Finally, the DOJ decided that NewPage/Verso would have to sell two paper mills before they approved the merger, and Catalyst Paper bought the Rumford, Maine and Biron, Wisconsin mills and was allowed to select people from the Dayton Head Office to staff the I.T., customer service, logistics, and other head office requirements.  I joined Catalyst Paper at that point and was given a nice signing bonus to make sure I stayed around a while.  Thanks to the DOJ for helping pay off the house early and allowing me to retire over three years early!

The only actual save-my-life rescue moment I know is through a story told to me later in life.  I was probably three or four years old when my parents walked me toward the deeper end of the pool at the Trotwood Aquatic Club.  They didn’t realize how short I was and before long I was completely submerged.  Someone, their identity I don’t recall, got my parent’s attention and they yanked me up and out of the water, allowing me to breathe again.  Some things in life should happen before you get old enough to remember, and I’m happy this is one of them.

What was an unusual compliment you once received, but really appreciated?

While I was working at NewPage Corporation in the Information Technology strategy role, Tom Anderson once told a small group of people, with myself included, that “For most people, we’re trying to get them to think outside the box, but for Paul, we’re trying to get him in the box.”  I guess that fulfills the “unusual” part of the question.  I’ve never heard anyone being described that way. 

For most of my career, I was tasked with creating or managing change.  A large part of that is getting people comfortable with that, whether providing the resources, motivation, or atmosphere to move an effort along.   The biggest part of the atmosphere aspect is reducing or eliminating the fear of failure.  A part of being “in the box” is that it’s a safe place, where you do what’s expected of you and not rock the boat.  It’s doing what you know and perhaps learn one or two new tricks, but nothing where the blame can come back on you when something inevitably goes wrong.  

I’ve completely changed how our network was designed, challenged deeply held “in the box” beliefs, was part of the team that went from day one to first SAP go-live in ten months, pushed Internet and mobile technologies, and made a one-a-month, four-hour SAP outage a reality.  I did this, obviously with the help of many talented people, by taking risks, seeking the true issues, and figuring out how to get people to understand, calm down, and begin moving.  Then getting out of their way.

I really appreciate Tom’s compliment.  It sums up how I approached work every day, being that guy who took risks, saw things differently, and enabled people to grow, enjoy their jobs, and make a difference.  

What are you really hard on yourself about?

I’m really hard on myself when I do something stupid.  Not any stupid, but the kind where I’ve told myself what to do or not to do and I go ahead and do the opposite.  For example, I’m doing some kind of task and it has become obvious I need to stop what I’m doing and regroup.  But no, I continue on until I start shouting at myself to stop, often several times, before my body listens to my mouth.  It’s that kind of stupid I can’t stand in myself.

Conversely, I’m generally not hard on myself for being wrong, unless that wrong is really stupid.  I’m notorious for poor navigational driving skills.  I turn on the wrong street often and even drive by my own house on occasion.  Being in Information Technology all my adult life, I’ve written many errors into programs, misconfigured hardware more often than I care to admit, and have had to take a whole different approach when a decision turned out to be poor.  I personally think admitting you are wrong is a strength, so much that I wrote on my office’s dry erase board “It’s good that I don’t mind being wrong, because I’m so good at it.”  It’s much easier to manage people when they see you as imperfect.  They don’t worry as much about being wrong at times. 

I’m also hard at times when others are stupid, for example, a football player that just needs to take a knee to seal a win, but instead tries to score another pointless touchdown and in the process fumbles the ball, the opposing team recovers and wins the game.  I just can’t stand losing because I, or others, haven’t thought about the current situation and planned out the proper response.  That’s what really steams me.

What famous or important people have you encountered in real life?

By far my biggest encounter was basketball legend Michael Jordan.  I had just finished a round of golf at the Wailea golf course on the Hawaiian island of Maui and was in the pro shop searching for a golf shirt to take home as a reminder of those beautiful 18 holes.  As I was browsing, all noise in the pro shop abruptly stopped as if everyone left at the same time.  As I looked up to see what was going on, Michael casually walked by and headed to the desk to get checked in for his round.  The place stayed quiet until Michael was out the door, then the noise returned, of course, louder than before.   

The second NBA encounter was Larry Bird, another legend, and this one occurred in an airport, Philadelphia probably, but not totally sure.  If you’re not familiar with Larry, he was a 6-foot, 8-inch forward with one of the best shooting touches ever.  When you see him on television he appears to be slim, at least in comparison to the other beefy goliaths trying to guard him near the basket.  Larry has a very distinctive face and when I saw him at the airport I knew it was him.  But what amazed me was how large he was, nothing like the skinny rail I expected.  Larry had wide shoulders, appeared fifty pounds heavier than I ever imagined, and was a real hunk of a man.

During one of our frequent trips to California with IBM, our group of five played Half Moon Bay, a golf course located along the Pacific ocean thirty miles south of San Francisco.  We had to break up into a threesome and a twosome as the course did not permit a group of five to play together.  I went out first in the threesome and my buddy Jim Nicholas went out second in the twosome.  A couple of holes later Jim circled back to me and said they had been paired up with another twosome, which included Jerry Rice, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, and the best wide receiver in NFL history, and a pretty decent golfer.  On the back nine, we noticed that this group behind us now numbered five.  A course ranger came up to us and asked if Jerry was in that group of five, which we told him he was, and they were allowed to continue.  I guess the rules that applied to Jerry were different.  As they played the 18th hole our group watched Jerry, now very comfortable playing with Jim, stand in the middle of the fairway, arms up like he was signaling a touchdown, telling Jim to hit his shot “through the goalposts”, laughing and smiling the entire time.