1951

I was intrigued by a recent newspaper story noting that a small Florida manufacturer is opening a facility in China, using as intermediary its wellestablished distributor in Taiwan. This seems extraordinary, given that most everything else about Taiwan is anathema to the mainland Chinese. But it is only the latest trailblazing move for this innovative company, Sun Hydraulics Corp. of Sarasota, Fla., and its founder and chairman BobKoski. Bob was deeply disappointed when serious heart trouble in our senior year prevented him from receiving his degree in art/architecture. But he persevered through years of recovery, and subsequently being drafted for army service in Germany, to return to Hanover and get his degree in 1957. He then worked in engineering—machine tools—but soon saw the fledgling fluid power (hydraulics) field as a greater opportunity and joined Fluid Controls Inc. of Mentor, Ohio, in 1959, becoming director of marketing and corporate development as the company grew from 20 to 300 employees. But he had come to feel strongly that the hierarchy structure common to most manufacturers was so inefficient and counterproductive that there must be a better way. And so in 1970 he started his own shoestring company, Sun Hydraulics, determined to institute "horizontal management" throughout the workforce. No hierarchy, no titles, no formal job descriptions, no reporting relation ships, no close supervision.

Employees would be organized in "family groups" rather than "departments." This unorthodox approach undeniably has worked well for Sun. By the early 1980s Bob was lecturing regularly to M.B.A. candidates at Harvard and Stanford. More to the point, Sun's sales (hydraulic valves and manifolds for cranes and backhoes) have marched steadily upward, from $500,000 to $64 million. There are 530 workers at the company's two modern plants in Florida, over 100 more at facilities in England, Germany, and Korea. Through it all, Bob has modestly held that most of the credit really should go to his collegial employees. But even he cannot deny that they did it his way.

On a recent trip out west I had a most pleasant lunch with Sarah and CharlieBreed in the midst of spectacular desert scenery at the Boulders in Carefree, Arizona, north of Phoenix. They moved out there from St. Louis several years ago, and haven't looked back. While Charlie is supposedly retired—playing golf at least three days per week—the world never really lets a skilled fund-raiser rest. So he's heavily involved in an effort to establish a center for the arts with theater, auditorium, and museum at the Boulders, as an extension of the bustling Scottsdale Center for the Arts. I drove on to Tucson to see Joan and Hap Person (my old Theta Chi roommate), whose winter home is also in a stunning desert setting. They had Nancy and Aram Chorebanian in for dinner, and we all had a great time reminiscing. Hap recounted being taken, as a little boy, by his parents to see Dartmouth play Cornell at Hanover. It was only years later that he came to understand the hullabaloo over a "fifth down" in that game.

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The class has bonded with the class of 2001, recently providing students with $5,000 worth of football tickets.