I’m flying up to Newark today with a familiar fellow passenger: Bob Ferguson, former CEO of Midway Airlines. Ferguson used to run Continental Airlines before running Midway so it figures he’d fly Continental today. I wonder what else he’s up to?
Ah, here’s the answer. He’s CFO of Reliant Pharmeceuticals of New Jersey, and apparently not doing too bad for himself.
I remember noticing in the later years at IBM, certain 4th line managers seemed to go from one failed project to another. I wondered if it was a product of IBM’s “difficult” development environment or if they were bringing their own doom. After the big layoffs one of the guys I’d noticed ended up in the non-cult sector (i.e. not IBM). Last I noticed he was on his 3rd or 4th golden parachute floating safely down while his employees and peers burned up in the atmosphere. Hard to tell if it is some sort of Casandra like attraction to losing propositions or the opposite of the Midas touch. It is just hard to figure out why they should be rewarded for their brand of management.
Flying with your guy is probably very very safe as he seems to be well protected. I would advise not getting on the plane if he is carrying a large package leaking golden parachute like light. 🙂
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