Chemical Education Today

JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 79 No. 5 May 2002 • Journal of Chemical Education 561

Book & Media Reviews edited byJeffrey Kovac

University of TennesseeKnoxville, TN 37996-1600

Everybody Wins! 2nd Edition

by Gordon Cain

Chemical Heritage Foundation: Philadelphia, PA, 2001.353 pp. Paper: ISBN 0-941901-28-9. $14.95. Cloth:ISBN 0-941901-14-9. $24.95.

reviewed by Michael Caswell

Everybody Wins! is as much a testament to personalsuccess in a free-enterprise society as it is to the accomplish-ments of Gordon Cain. Like some others, Cain came from aless than privileged background to make important businesscontributions. Cain’s contributions are enormous.

Cain details his early years in Louisiana where he enjoyedthe benefits of a family that valued higher education and ex-pected hard work. Another important value was his lifelongabiding interest in results rather than process. These valuesserved Cain well throughout his life. The details of his earlyyears are an excellent description of life in the early part ofthe 20th century.

While Cain’s career gave him an entree into leveragedbuy-outs (LBO), his career moves provide every new collegegraduate with a guide to career planning. His college degreegave him an opportunity for a job. Once in a job, his successcame as a consequence of his knowledge, hard work, and re-sults orientation. Cain moved through six corporations (onetwice). Each move originated from a personal contact and

was based on Cain’s ability to get results. One importantomission was insight into Cain’s decision-making processduring his employment moves or during his business deal-ings. I would have enjoyed understanding his thinking.

Managing his first LBO for Conoco, Cain gained con-fidence and important contacts for the second phase of hiscareer: buying, restructuring, and selling corporations. Heoffers more details on the buying and selling than on the re-structuring. In “Changing Management” (Chapter 12), Caindescribes restructuring as reducing management work forceto a “lean, entrepreneurial organization” while improvingmanagement. His view that “busy people have no time tobuild empires or interdepartmental squabbling” seems chill-ingly similar to the reason why he declined an employmentopportunity from Armand Hammer (p 139). Unlike Mr.Hammer, Cain chose to spread the wealth of his achievementsto lower-level management.

Although salary is not a motivational tool for improvedperformance, Cain discovered that wealth was. His incorpo-ration of employee stock ownership plans following aleveraged buy-out greatly enhanced performance standards.This is his greatest legacy to free enterprise business.

Everybody Wins! should be on the shelf of every businessschool library and every chemistry library. The book makesenjoyable and rewarding reading by mixing technology andthe business of technology.

Michael Caswell is Director of Scientific Affairs, C. B. FleetCompany, Inc., Lynchburg, VA 24506; caswellm@cbfleet.com.