From Home, Stage 5. Early adulthood – The Soul Apprentice at the Wellspring and RPS

For ten of my years at the Zen Center I had a day job as a manager at Avnet, then the world’s largest distributor of electronic components to industry.

When RPS moved I interviewed at Avnet (then at about 1 billion, since grown to $27.9 billion annual sales in FY 2015). Over the next ten years I held ten positions at the company, many of which I created. In 1981 I created the first PC-based corporate inventory system there, using SuperCalc on the Xerox personal computers we sold. I was doing online searches for marketing research, using Lockheed’s Dialog software, before the invention of the World Wide Web. A small group of us (intrepeneurs) split off a computer business within the electronic components distribution company, using data from a system I developed by siphoning off data from the corporate mainframes onto the DEC minicomputers we sold. The division we started is now called Avnet Technology Solutions, which has now grown to $10.6 billion sales in FY 2015. (They sold the division  to Tech Data in 2017.)

Being interviewed by six managers 1981
The sales floor at Hamilton Avnet’s Culver City branch was a huge space. There were six large offices with large windows looking onto the floor, all in a line along one wall. When I went in to interview for a Product Manager position, I was taken to the far office and sat down to be interviewed. I thought the interview went well. When we were done he walked me over to the next office and I had my second interview. This continued until I had been interviewed by all 6 managers, and was offered the job.

#5.1 of SA5. Avnet and Business 

Creating the inventory spreadsheet for Jim Jeffries 1981 I was hired to do 3 months each of Customer Service, Inside Sales, and Outside Sales before becoming a Product Manager for the Los Angeles sales office. After the 3 months of Customer Service I was asked by Don Sweet, the corporate Senior VP in charge of product management, if I wanted to join his small team that did the purchasing for the whole company, in the same building as the Culver City branch where I was working. My new title was Assistant Corporate Product Manager, Hamilton/Avnet Electronics. I didn’t get any more money, but it was obviously a major step up. While there, from September to December 1981, we picked up distribution for the Xerox Star, which came with VisiCalc. I had been working with Jim Jeffries, in charge of inventory for H/A, which was the world’s largest distributor ef electronic components. I immediately saw that what he had me doing could be automated using the new tool. They brought me one, Greg Kawasaki showed me how to use it, and voila, H/A entered the world of the personal computer. I was identified as a rising star.

From Culver City to Torrance 1982-84. There was a business downturn and a wave of layoffs. Senior VP Don Sweet, a member of Tony Hamilton’s small inner circle came to talk to me. He said they are eliminating my position but he wants to keep me in the company. He figured out a way to hide me in a sleepy nearby division so when business picks up I can continue my upward growth in the company. I became the Assistant Semiconductor Product Manager for the Time Electronics branch in Torrance.

While there it was so slow and quiet that to keep myself from getting depressed I created an upwardly mobile management training program for myself. I read Dress for Success and wore my power outfits every day. I enrolled in Toastmasters and went to the meetings to improve my public speaking skills.

Then one day the two managers of the new computer products warehouse, also in Torrance, came by to see if any of their mail had been delivered to us by mistake. I jumped out of my chair, walked over to them, and launched into a sales pitch about how much I would rather work for them than where I was. They invited me to come by and talk about a position they had opening up to manage their new personal computer software business. I got the job and spent the rest of my time at Avnet working with that group.

When I got a promotion to a serious management position I was sent to a training and I had a lot more to keep track of. Somebody at the Zen Center who worked in the Human Resources department of a large aerospace firm had an assignment to evaluate time management systems for her company. She told me about a system that she was very enthusiastic about, that she thought was much better than the rest, called Geodex.

Independent study in Business and Values 1984-91. Working at Avnet and living and practicing at the Zen Center every day, after having been a hippie, was quite a mix of value systems. One day I found a book in the ZCLA “boutique” (free store) called The Independent Scholar’s Handbook. It inspired me to start what I called my Independent Scholar’s Journal. The first entry is in 1984, the last in 1991. I spent a lot of time at the USC library, got a card, and checked out a lot of books about business and values. Bob Silvers entered the Stanford doctoral program in Organizational Behavior and I seriously considered it. I haven’t gone back over the journal since then. I hope I can sometime.

#5.3 of SA5. Avnet and Business

Creating the Computer Marketing division 1986-89
Bill Page was the visionary. The concept was very simple and compelling. The “world’s largest distributor of electronic components” had been selling an increasing amount of computer components as the PC industry started growing. Our warehouse in Torrance was where that product was purchased, stocked, and shipped from. The sales force was totally oriented toward electronic components and considered the computer products a distraction. Bill’s vision, quickly shared by our team of 5 or 6 young product managers, was to build a computer products division with its own sales force, to eventually become the dominant force in the company. We knew we were the wave of the future and we had the fire in our bellies. We were going to do it as countercultural upstarts, undercutting the bloated corporate thinking and style of the old guard. We had a great deal of fun putting it together, and after about 2 years of work, we succeeded in creating Avnet Computer. A very heady experience.

#5.4 of SA5. Avnet and Business

Head Trainee at the Zen Center January-March 1988
I am on my way to my boss’s office to tell him something very important. “Bill, in a few weeks I’m going to start a 3 month training program at th zen center.” As I speak I feel the tectonic bumping of the 2 continents I’ve been living in for the last 7 years, and a feeling of hollowness in my chest. I’m at the headquarters of a major industrial corporation, in a very responsible position. But I’m telling my boss I’m going to come to work soon with a shaved head because for the next three months I’m going to be the head trainee in an intensive training at the Zen Center of Los Angeles.

Three months later I have the big graduation ceremony, the Shuso Hossen . One of my honored guests is Issan Dorsey, who I met almost 20 years earlier as the cook for Salvation.

#4 of 2015 Memories to Memoirs

Developing corporate mainframe software 1989. I was selected to be the Avnet Computer representative on the end-user team that met all day every day for months to design the specifications for Avnet’s new IBM mainframe inventory management, purchasing, and logistics system. I learned a LOT about large corporate IT systems development during that time. This was when I met Riley Sinder and got much deeper into the concept of Leadership he was developing with Ronnie Heifetz.

I wrote about being laid off in 1991 in the 1997 Memoir class: It began “Six years ago, at the age of 47, I was laid off from my job. It was a rather antiseptic and anti-climactic exercise. My supervisor called me into his office, with his boss, who had been conducting this ritual with my peers for weeks. I had survived at least a half-dozen layoffs over a ten year period, so I had plenty of chance to emotionally prepare myself. We all knew what was happening and made it as pleasant and matter-of-fact as possible.”