The Adored

  “Exactly, let’s talk about them,” Ball said looking Winston in the eyes firmly.

  “OK, for starters the Chinese own solar. They are years ahead of the US. By dragging our feet and letting special interests have their way, we gave it to the Chinese. There are maybe ten manufacturing plants in China that have forty acres of solar panel lines in production. We have two that maybe have ten acres. We had a real chance in the 1970s with the original oil shocks, then OPEC. It told us there was a limit. Then the environmental movement in the eighties and nineties. It told us there was a limit. We didn’t react, and the Chinese did. Now we’re stuck. If we can get out of foreign oil, we’ll be stuck with foreign solar. That’s it, game over!” Winston told his friend.

  “Hah, then why the hell are you in the business, Winny,” Ball said, “You’re smarter than God; I can’t imagine you chasing a lost cause.”

  “It’s almost over, but I think we can make a difference.”

  “I know you can too,” Ball told his friend. “That’s why I’m here, Winny. I have been listening to you all these years. Tell me, all those elements under the roof of the Chinese solar companies, who makes them.”

  “Not the Chinese. You do understand!” Winston said. “I know where you’re going. They are assemblers, manufacturers, distributors.”

  “Exactly. They are not the inventors,” Sebastian added and continued, leaning forward once again. “They do innovate, but only in those processes they are engaged in. We can do what they do. They are making solar panels as commodities. But they do have labor costs on their side.”

  Winston Trout stood up, squinted and faced the window, “The science is coming out of American universities, some in Germany, and from a few companies like ours. Same with the reactors and furnaces; all of them are designed and made in the US and Germany,” now he turned and looked down at Sebastian who sat back. “It’s the final products that are made in China, and now out of sensitivity to that the Chinese are starting to do panel assembly in the US to get over that hurdle, the same way the Japanese did by building car plants in the South. If we can out-innovate them, if we can produce on a giant scale we can take the labor cost off the table and make all elements here,” Trout concluded. He was warming to the conversation. “I’m thirsty, you’re whetting my appetite. Want a soda or some water?”

  “Sure, Pepsi’s fine.”

  There was a phone on the table between them, and Trout lifted the receiver and asked his assistant for water and a Pepsi. Ball stood to stretch and stood beside Trout at the window.

  “This is some beautiful stretch of the city. A minipark right down the middle of the street.” Ball said.

  “That’s why they call it Park Ave,” Trout said, as the assistant brought the two drinks in and placed them on the table.

  “Hey, I never thought about that before, pretty neat,” Ball said, pleased with this tidbit of New York trivia.

  “So we’ve been dancing around on this topic,” Trout said. “You know what I know, but I don’t know what you know, what you’re thinking.” It was a question phrased as a statement.

  “Winny, I think I’ve found out what I want to do,” Ball said confidently. “I want solar to be America’s great new industry. With this economic downturn lagging, I want the country united around it, like the space program. Millions of new jobs, good paying jobs, top technology, and all supported by the government—nationally to drive research towards solar and with significant tax investment credit and with local government to support solar companies with grants of land and buildings and tax breaks. And these local governments work with the companies to build endowments to ensure their futures are secure if new technologies displace their citizens.”

  “Sebastian, you’re way up in the clouds. You’re dreaming again.”

  “No Winny, I want this to be our job. I want to partner with you—for you and me to become the next Carnegie and Frick.”

  “Ha, ha!” Trout said in a mock laugh. “Sebastian, you are so freaking funny. Where do you get these ideas? And who am I? Carnegie or Frick.”

  “You’re Frick. I just bought Solar Foundries and another smaller company, Solar Installation.”

  “What? You’re mad!” Trout exclaimed, caught off guard. He was aware that Solar Foundries was the leading American manufacturer of all elements needed in the manufacture of solar products from reactors to furnaces, to all the parts required to keep the reactors and furnaces working. He was struck by the boldness of his friend’s statement. “You don’t know anything about solar.”

  “No, but you do. I want to buy Trout Solar and put it together with the other two.” Sebastian Ball brought his punch line out, and it came out too quickly. Ball could see the shock on his friend’s face.

  “And what will I do?” Trout asked almost meekly, hurt by his friend’s sweeping dreams. He and his billions would just come busting in to take over Winston’s father’s company, without considering whether there was interest by the Trouts. Winston had trouble with Ball when he went off in his tangents in the past, but they were harmless, but this, this was frightening. A person with no knowledge of an industry would suddenly appoint himself captain of that industry and buy up whatever he chose, including his friend’s business. Sebastian Ball: the hammer looking for a nail.

  “You would run the combined company, well your father would, with you in a key executive position, and eventually you’d run the company.”

  “No, Sebastian,” an obviously upset Trout said, now standing, facing the window. “The company is not mine to sell.”

  “You haven’t let me finish. I don’t want these companies. They’ll be yours. I’ll have a substantial stake, but the majority will be owned by you and your father. In fact, I won’t even be in the company, other than maybe as a board member to help with funding, direction and political stuff. We’ll be taking the company private. It will be your company, Winny, only now you’ll have all the parts necessary to make it real, to compete with the Chinese,” Ball said.

  “My God, Sebastian,” a now dumbfounded Winston Trout exclaimed. “You are serious.”

  “I am,” a smiling Ball said. “What do you say?”

  “I can’t say anything. Even though you say you bought two companies, to do all of the other things you said, it is going to take years.”

  “I’ve talked with six companies that own the land we could bring everything together on; also to four cities that own buildings and land that they would love to get back on the tax rolls at some point. They will all work with us. I’ve acquired the rights to two large modern plants in Steubenville, Ohio, and two more up the river in Beaver Falls, PA. I’ve talked with the governors of both Ohio and Pennsylvania; they are very enthusiastic about the idea and have each set up teams to help us identify what we need,” He paused, and looked into Winston Trout’s eyes. “Please do this with me, Winny? I need you. We need to do this.”

  “I can’t believe you’re that interested, but it sounds like you are. Somehow I’ll help you. I’ll talk with my father. Then both of us will talk with him.”

  Chapter 26

  Everything in a father passes emotionally to his son. It was no different for Arthur Trout and his son Winston. And there was no hesitation on the part of the son to accept the love of his father. They were inseparable whenever they were at home, and when away from home, they talked daily.

  Winston Trout was a great friend to his Brunswick School mates, and even though he and Traynor Johnson were like brothers, his best friend was his father, Arthur.

  Winston chose to attend MIT and not just because his father graduated from MIT. MIT was in his blood from a very young age. Arthur Trout had grown up in Cambridge, and whenever possible the Trout family found a reason to go to that city. Arthur regaled young Winston with his stories of Cambridge, a number of which Kathy Trout did not care for her son to hear. But mostly she allowed Arthur to ramble on with his stories of playing pool in Tom Lynch’s pool hall on Hampshire St. “It was dark when yo
u walked in from the sun, and in the back grouchy, angry old Tom Lynch sat, yelling half the time, ‘If you’re not playing, get the hell out.’” In Tom’s you had to get your dime on the table for the next rack.

  Attending public schools in Cambridge, Arthur did particularly well. He excelled in math and physics and won one of two scholarships that MIT gave every year to students from the city that housed them. MIT sought the goodwill of the citizens of Cambridge as it constantly battled with the city manager over its fair share contribution for the services the city provided; besides a couple of scholarships annually would not dilute the genius pool that attended the esteemed science school. In the case of Arthur Trout, there was no dilution. He added to the genius pool. His contributions in materials science were significant enough that he stayed to earn his masters and PHD and later became a guest lecturer. He, along with the department of material science, patented several innovations for developing solar panels and modules. With one professor and two other graduate students, he founded Trout Solar Systems. The arrangement worked wonderfully for the school since they received royalties from the patents. The professor, an Indian by the name of Rajit Singh, remained at the school, and the free flow of ideas from theory to practice aided both the school and the company.

  Trout Solar was an early player in the war heating up for alternative sources of energy. Arthur Trout sat on several presidential commissions and became a trusted advisor to the Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, the Nobel laureate who was one of Trout senior’s closest friends.

  The Cambridge that Arthur Trout grew up in was the Cambridge that Winston Trout grew to love. Father and son would drive by the old pool hall with Arthur imitating old Tom Lynch.

  In the winter when they visited, they would take their ice skates, hockey sticks and play one-on-one hockey on the Cambridge common as Arthur did when he grew up. Arthur found it wonderful that the Cambridge Fire Department still hosed down the softball field and made it into the same rink he remembered. The Trouts would always stay at the Sheraton Commander Hotel, just across the street from the common, in back of Harvard Square. It was where Arthur had been staying for twenty years whenever he returned to lecture or work at MIT. The Commander was named for George Washington, Commander of the Continental Army, who took over the army across the street in the common. The hotel was approaching its ninetieth birthday, and it still retained the charm of a boutique European hotel. The Guleserian family had been running the Commander as far back as Arthur could remember and maintained in a quiet luxury that constantly brought former guests back. All of the top law firms still recruited at Harvard Law School out of the hotel’s guest rooms, and almost annually Al Gore would come in to help recruit a hot young law student for a favorite firm.

  Kathy, Arthur, and Winston enjoyed the intimacy of Harvard Square, its book stores, diversity of restaurants, and on the summer evenings, all those wonderful music groups playing on every corner in the Square. On Sundays the City closes Memorial Drive, the road winding along the Charles River, just east of the square. When the Trouts were coming to Cambridge in the summer, they attached the bike rack to the Mercedes wagon and brought along three bikes to ride for several miles along the Drive.

  Kathy Trout, who Arthur met at a mixer for Wellesley girls and MIT boys while both were in their senior year, would tell Arthur that if they ever were to move from Greenwich, CT, where they moved after setting up their company headquarters in New York City, the only acceptable place would be Cambridge. Arthur understood, and he appreciated that Kathy had adopted the city of his youth as well.

  One particular Sunday, around the time Winston was graduating from MIT, the family took their bike ride and ended up by the Weeks footbridge, an ancient connection over the Charles River between Harvard College in Cambridge and Harvard Business School in Allston. A sizeable painting of the bridge hung in the Trout home, and it was one of those reminders of Cambridge that was always around. As they parked their bikes by the bridge and sat on the grass nearby, Arthur told his son of a time when, as a seventeen-year-old Cambridge High & Latin School student, he would regularly come to this almost-exact spot on Friday nights with his friends Terry and Junior and drink quarts of Knickerbocker beer.

  “But on this particular night we had Ace and the Cosgrove brothers, Jackie and Donnie with us. It was around eleven, and we were all a little high and right behind us on Memorial Drive a police car pulls up. We took off across the bridge like a shot. Going across the bridge we dropped the quart bottles, and they shattered all over the place. We got to the other side, and there were two more police cars waiting for us there,” Arthur said smiling.

  “Have I heard this story?” Kathy kidded Arthur.

  “Go on, Dad,” Winston said.

  “Well, they were MDC police. They handle all of the parkways around Boston, MDC, Metropolitan District Commission. Anyway, they took us all down to their station, which is right past MIT at Lechmere Square. Turns out they knew most of our fathers. The Cosgrove’s father and my father worked for the city. The police said they could call our parents to come and get us. With that Jackie Cosgrove starts begging, “Please, do not call my father, he’ll kill me.” So one of the officers who took us in says, “I have an idea, Sarge,” and he talks to the sergeant. “OK,” the sergeant says, “we can call your parents or you can go back to the bridge with the officers and sweep up all the broken glass you left there.” It was a good option. The bridge was spotless when we finished, and Friday nights by the river came to a halt.”

  Winston was laughing, and even though she had heard it before, Kathy Trout still smiled at her husband’s youthful adventures.

  “Well, go on, finish the story,” Kathy offered up.

  “There’s more? Come on, Dad, out with it.” Winston challenged his father.

  “Well, this part is tame. After graduating and when I first started coming back to work on developing the company, I would stay at the Commander. They always gave me the same room, really a suite, with a bedroom and a living room. In the living room hung a picture of the Weeks Bridge. So whenever I looked up, there was the reminder of my misspent youth.”

  “Just like we have a picture of the bridge at home.” Winston exclaimed.

  “The exact picture we have at home.” Arthur said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I guess I had been staying here eight or ten nights a month for three years and got to know the owners, the Guleserians, pretty well. They would give me their season tickets to the Red Sox games from time to time. You remember those good seats behind the plate?” he said to Winston.

  “The best.”

  “Compliments of my host. Anyway, when I knew we would not be staying here as much in the future, I went down to see the father and son a few days before returning home. And I told them the Friday night tale of the Weeks Bridge. Two days later as I was checking out, Michael Guleserian meets me at the front desk with the painting that had been in my room for those years and gives it to me as a gift.”

  “No way. That’s how you got that painting?” And when Arthur nodded with Kathy smiling, a now laughing Winston said, “That’s cool.”

  Arthur taught Winston mathematics and physics and materials science right alongside his high school teachers. And the younger Trout wrestled to grasp new ideas and concepts that his father was encouraging him to learn. And he did learn. As he grew there was never a question that the young man would go into his father’s business. Winston knew the company as well as anyone in the firm. He spent his summers working there; he did his internships with his father, except for one year, his junior year.

  That was the only year, the only summer he waivered. During the course of the school year, he had been working on a project called “the vessel.” He talked with his father about it during the spring break, before the end of the school year and the time he was to begin the internship with his father. He wanted to pursue his work a little further but was afraid to disappoint his father. Arthur Trout could tell
it was a tough conversation for him.

  To listen to Winston talk, his eyes focused, you could see his mind working behind his eyes. He talked rapidly; so fast in fact, it was difficult to understand him. You needed to listen with your mind to what he was saying. The father could see the intelligence on his face, an intelligence that surpassed his own. Winston’s face, with many parts, worked as one, his eyes moving, thinking, the lips were saying what the eyes were seeing in the mind. And the hands joined in, punching the air for emphasis, like a conductor. There was tension behind the thinking. You could feel its tightness. He lived in his science.

  “So,” his father began, “this vessel heats plasma, and as the temperature rises it becomes less stable, right?” Arthur asked his son, wanting to understand. “Well, how hot are you getting it?”

  “We’re taking it to the temperature of the sun. It gets that hot. But only for one and a half seconds then it starts vibrating and rattling and we need to shut it down.”

  “What’s the purpose of the vessel; what are they ultimately trying to do with it?”

  “Solve the energy crisis,” Winston said flatly.

  Arthur Trout sat back. He thought for a second and said, “Then you should follow your instincts. You’ll be trying to do the same thing we’re working on at the company with solar, only you are thinking of a much greater scale. It sounds like incrementalism, yes?”

  “Certainly, in the next ten years we’ll be lucky enough to get it to stay stable for eight or nine seconds. The department has been working on it for fifteen years.”