It took an assassination attempt on the President of the United States to make me try to interview a member of Ronald Reagan’s ‘Kitchen Cabinet.” The reason for my interview? To teach my filmmaking class about business.
It was March 30, 1981. Shots rang out in Washington, DC. As two men fell, shot, to the sidewalk, the Secret Service rushed President Ronald Reagan into his waiting limousine. They thought he had been spared, but as they sped away from the scene, the President said he felt as though he had broken a rib. It was not a broken rib: he had been hit by a bullet. The limo changed course and headed for a hospital. The President’s life was saved.
I was in the Graduate Cinema program at the University of Southern California. Looking at my Filmmaking 101 class, I was aware that a lot of kids in my class disliked President Reagan. Reagan was seen as pro-business. This made him poison to some in the class, a class that consisted mostly of undergraduates inexperienced in business.
My background, on the other hand, was a year at IBM, three and a half years at Price Waterhouse, and several years as an independent consultant. One of my clients: Earle M. Jorgensen Company. Earle, at that point 83 years old, was a friend of President Reagan. Earle was one of the people who talked Reagan into running for Governor of California, Reagan’s first foray into public office. From there, Reagan went into the Presidency. Earle was part of Reagan’s “Kitchen Cabinet” – close friends who advised him informally.
I wondered, “Could the assassination attempt be turned into something constructive by using it to teach kids about what business is supposed to be? I wrote to Earle, asking to interview him for my Filmmaking class at USC, telling him that the students in my class didn’t know about business and that they needed to find out how business is supposed to be: that it’s about honesty and service like at Jorgensen Steel. I told him if more people understood business then maybe there would be fewer people trying to shoot our President.
To my delight, I got the okay to come and interview Earle and others at the company. Little did I know that I had Earle’s Senior Vice-President, John F. Watkins, to thank for this. Watkins liked my idea but he also knew that Earle disliked publicity. If a Los Angeles Times reporter came asking for an interview, the reporter received a polite “No.” Ditto everyone else. Watkins, bless his heart, decided on an innovative approach. He read my interview request to Earle during the executive coffee break. Surrounded by his executive team, there was no way Earle could turn down an opportunity to teach kids business the Jorgensen way. Earle accepted my request.
To Steve, a friend of mine in class, I explained my approach. I told him that recently a Senior Vice-President of IBM told a Harvard Business School alumni group about the need for honesty in business. After the talk, I approached the IBM Vice-President, Francis G. “Buck” Rodgers. “Don’t you find it strange that you are telling Harvard Business School alumni what they already should have learned at Harvard Business School?” Rodgers sighed, “Business schools don’t teach ethics. That’s why I take three months off each year to go to business schools and teach!” Here was my chance, I told Steve, of making the film into a teaching moment.
The interviews went well. I assembled a five minute film. I was ready – but I knew the film could not do the job by itself. It needed a good discussion afterwards.
May 4, 1981
The lights went down. “Inside Jorgensen Steel” played across the screen before the students in Filmmaking 101. The lights came back up.
Now for the discussion. The technical aspects were examined in less than two minutes – not much to say when the film looked pretty amateur. Then the discussion turned to the content.
To my astonishment, the teaching assistant boomed from the back of the room, “You are socially irresponsible to make a pro-business film!” What problem did he have with the film?
What the film showed was that Earle had an open-door policy. If anyone wanted to come in and talk to him or to any of the other managers, the doors were open. People could share their problems and/or their recommendations.
Earle had a first name-policy. If someone called him “Mr. Jorgensen,” he would correct them by pointing to the hard hat that he wore into the factory. On it was his name, “Earle”. “You’re Bob”, he would tell the fellow, pointing to Bob’s hat. Pointing to his own hat, he would say, “I’m Earle.”
The only assigned parking was for the security guard. If 83-year-old Earle came in late, he would have to walk all the way from the back parking lot – and it was Earle’s name on the building!
And everyone at Jorgensen Steel worked hard and enthusiastically. It was called “being Jorgenized”. One woman I interviewed joked, “I was told new employees became ‘Jorgenized’ and I laughed it off, but here I am – it’s after 6 o’clock at night – and I’m pushing to get this modification into the computer system so the factory in Philadelphia will have it in the morning.”
When Jorgensen Steel flew me as part of a team to Chicago to install a new computer program, not only was the team flown first class, but even I – an outside consultant – was flown first class. To Earle, if the company was making you leave your home and family, they flew you first class.
And Earle wasn’t concerned if you didn’t have a college degree. Could you do the work? That was the only standard.
Of course, I included a couple of items I knew might rile some people:
Then I told the class what wasn’t in the film – that Earle M. Jorgensen Company supported two enterprises for kids: Young People of Watts and Young People of Lynwood. There, kids learned a great work ethic. The two organizations also kept down gang activity. Earle could have received massive publicity for his philanthropy but he said publicity had a way of bringing politics into the mix and that would mess everything up.
Midway through the discussion, one of the professors cautioned the students. “You are going to have to learn about business. You will be working in it.” At this point, the teaching assistant said, “Well, I guess someone has to do the work.” Was his thought about business changing?
There were a few more grumblings from a student or two about business. My friend, Steve, then piped up, “The problem with business schools is that they don’t teach ethics and they need to do that!” His contribution was unexpected but quite welcome!
Towards the end of the discussion, one woman sat stolidly silent. I expected, from previous discussions, that she wouldn’t take kindly to the film. At last, she spoke: “I don’t know what it is. There’s something about this film I just don’t like!”
My response was cheeky but I had to find out: “Could it be a knee-jerk hatred of business?”
From the back of the class a voice boomed, “That’s it! That’s the problem!” It was the teaching assistant – the same one who declared me irresponsible for making a pro-business film. Had he looked in the mirror and seen something of himself?
The discussion closed with that. It had been a full twenty minutes – over twice the length of any other film discussion that semester.
A few days later I was back at Jorgensen Steel, telling Earle how the film was received. He was thrilled, especially when I told him of the teaching assistant’s evolving view of business. Earle said, “You put some money into this. I will be happy to pay your costs.” I shook my head. “Thank you, Earle, but no. If you pay for it then it’s your film. This film is what I believe. It’s mine.”
That Fourth of July, President Reagan, his wife, and a few close friends sat on a blanket on the lawn in front of the White House, watching the fireworks. Reagan’s wife, Nancy, was on his right. To his left was Earle M. Jorgensen.
At some point after my Filmmaking class, I left the Cinema program and concentrated on the MFA in Professional Writing. Thirty years after my business profile of Earle M. Jorgensen, I returned to doing business profiles, this time not on film but for the radio. As before, I looked for business people who were exemplary in their honesty and in the good they did for their community.
Pam Powell is an author, playwright and radio personality living in Springfield, OR. Connect with her on Linked In.
© 2014 Pam Wylie Powell