What obstacles have you faced that have had the greatest impact on your career?
I think I've been blessed. I don't know that I've had any obstacles, per se. You know I was born during the time when our country still had legal racial segregation. To the extent that that was an obstacle, to the extent that early on in my life I wasn't able to go to the same schools that other children went to, well you might consider that an obstacle. But when I look back at my family and how those things worked out, I don't actually consider them obstacles. I guess you might want to consider it an obstacle that I was born relatively poor. My mother and father didn't have high school educations. My mother was a cook and my dad was a railroad laborer, so by all accounts, I maybe shouldn't have ended up where I ultimately ended up. But I had good parents. They gave us a lot of love and taught us how to respect ourselves, and taught us the basic rules of life. It's really interesting, and I always talk about this, that even though I was born poor my parents always taught me that I was not disadvantaged, and that I could do anything anybody else could do. And it wasn't until I went to college and took courses such as Sociology and Economics and Political Science that I even understood that I was disadvantaged. I never, ever viewed myself as being disadvantaged. To the extent that being born in a segregated society or to parents who were working parents might be an obstacle — I guess you could put it that way — but I never viewed it as an obstacle.

What can you tell us about your first job?
I will talk about this on two levels. My very first job out of college was as a Labor Relations Representative in 1969 for the Ford Motor Company at their Tractor Plant in Highland Park, Michigan. This was the last remaining Ford Motor Company inner city assembly/auto plant. I was a young college graduate and there were men and women at that plant of all backgrounds. It was a teeming, inner city automobile plant and it was a very difficult yet interesting job. I had a glass enclosed office without a door at the end of the assembly line. My only orientation was when the plant manager took me down to the assembly line my first day on the job. He was unhappy that I had been chosen because he had wanted to promote a man from the ranks of the workers to be the Labor Relations Representative who was then about 40 years old. I was in a management training program and was of course much younger. So his only orientation to me was: "Young man, your job is to make certain that these animals come to work." It was then that I knew I had a very tough job.

 

My first legal job was as a staff lawyer at Monsanto Company in St. Louis, MO. I graduated from Law School in 1974. At that time it was not a popular idea for young lawyers to take their first job in a corporation. It was considered more appropriate and more prestigious to take a job in a law firm. I wanted to practice in St. Louis because I'm from Missouri. I interviewed with law firms and with Monsanto, and decided for a number of reasons that notwithstanding the prevailing view about taking an in-house job right away, that that was the thing I was going to do. I got invaluable experience in that job. I think I matured far more quickly as a young lawyer in Missouri, and at Monsanto, than I would have had I been in a law firm, simply because a corporation doesn't have the time or the resources to get involved in layering legal assignments. I was thrown into the breach.

 

During my second year I was the sole lawyer responsible for the Astroturf business (Astroturf was the artificial grass that was laid in stadia across the country). So there I was, a lawyer two years out of law school, basically providing all the legal advice for the business unit. So it was a great decision—a lucky decision on my part to take that job.

When you were at Ford, how much were you paid for your first job there and how old were you?
I was 21 and I made $19,000. The interesting thing there is if you had asked me how much I made at my first job at Monsanto, after having spent three years in law school, I'll tell you. $19,000 a year. I had quit a job in a major company, gone to law school, battered my head against the wall studying law for three years, and I didn't make one penny more than I would have if I hadn't gotten a raise at Ford. So, that has been one of the big important teachings for me personally—everybody has to find their own way—what works for them.

 

I've never, ever taken a job, including this job, just for money. From a financial standpoint it made no sense for me to give up a job with a big fancy company like Ford Motor Company. I had a car, a big $19,000 a year and I gave that all up and went to law school, and I didn't make one penny more when I got out of law school.

But you're not sorry you did that are you?
No, I'm not sorry at all.

But when you went to Ford you had a master's degree, so you did have skills, right?
I had no skills. I had a degree.

What lessons that you learned in that job have been most useful to you in your career?
In the job at Ford I learned something very important and while it's a negative lesson, nevertheless it has been very important to me: never, ever underestimate anyone. In that job I had to deal with the labor representatives from the U.A.W. These were men who had typically worked on the assembly line, and who had worked their way up and had been elected shop stewards. Generally they didn't have a lot of education. And so the natural tendency would have been to think "Oh, I'm smarter than those guys. I have a Master's degree and I know more about what I'm doing than those guys do." Well I was taken to school by an old Italian U.A.W. labor relations guy, and I'll never forget him—his name was Sam Likovolli. We had a process where once an employee had a certain number of violations we had to fire them. If the company decided not to fire the employee at that point, then (under the Union contract) the violation count had to start all over again.

 

Well, this fellow came to my attention because he had had chronic absences and my boss wanted me to fire him. Well Sam came to me and pleaded in a very sincere way: "Don't fire the guy. Christmas is coming up and he has seven kids." I'll never forget it. "He has seven kids .don't fire him, give him one more chance, but if he messes up again you can throw him" and he used an expletive..."you can throw his you know what out on the street." Well, much to the disappointment and chagrin of my boss at the time, I agreed with Sam. I agreed to take Sam's word and let this guy have one more chance. Well, you know what happened. He messed up again and I fired him! And all of a sudden I see Sam marching to my office with five or six other union people behind him. He burst into my office, started cussing me out, saying "What are you doing? What are you doing? You had a chance to fire him and you didn't do it, and I'm tired of you guys messing over our people." And I said, "Sam, don't you remember what we agreed to?" And he said "I didn't agree to anything. I would never agree to anything like that." He took me to school! In that one episode I learned as much as I did in four year's of college. But more importantly, I learned never, ever to underestimate anyone. All people are smart and we have to take everyone seriously. That certainly can have a positive inference, but it can also have a negative inference.

 

In my first legal job, and again it was an in-house job, I wasn't just carrying some partner's briefcase in a law firm or just doing legal research for some partner. I had real responsibilities at Monsanto, and one of the things I learned there was the importance of draftsmanship and of being very precise. The law is a very detailed profession, and the senior lawyers at Monsanto who were used to dealing with all kinds of contracts and arrangements were very, very good draftsman.

 

They were very precise as to what was to be agreed upon in contracts. Right out of law school, I learned how important it is to be a precise draftsman.If you are precise you can get anything done from a business sense if you know exactly how to set out the terms and conditions and obligations, and how everything should fit together. In my very first legal assignment out of law school I was responsible to the Purchasing Department. A senior Purchasing Agent came to my office and said: "We have this chemical plant in Nitro, WV and our coal contract is running out. I want you to draft a contract to buy coal from this company for five years. If you can have it for me in the next couple of days I will appreciate it."

 

Now I had taken contracts in law school, but think about it, I had just taken contracts. I had never ever had to draft an actual contract. I'd never had to draft a contract for a plant to buy coal for five years. Well I was sort of paralyzed at first. But then, about an hour later, he came back to my office with a sort of a smile on his face and said: "Well, I guess you don't really know where to begin." And I said "I absolutely don't know where to begin." So he gave me a copy of the previous contract, and that gave me the format. It was a great experience.

 

I think the other lesson I learned there is don't always do what people expect you to do . Make your own decisions. There is no doubt in my mind that my legal career would have been far different had I gone to work at a law firm out of law school as opposed to having gone to work Monsanto.

What advice did you get that you later passed on to someone else?
Early on in my legal career, once I left Monsanto (I left Monsanto, not because I didn't like the job, but I realized after working there for a couple of years that I really didn't want to do corporate law) and I wanted to be a trial lawyer. I wanted to be a litigator and you cannot be a litigator if you are working for a corporation, as corporations like to avoid litigation. So I went to work for a law firm in Atlanta, and once again I took a pay cut. I took another pay cut and I went to work for this law firm.

 

One of the pieces of advice that I got, and it's a little old, but I was so eager to please, and so eager not to turn down any assignment, and one of the senior partners said to me, because he realized I was beginning to get stretched, he said: " you've got to understand your limitations. You've got to be able to work within your limitations." And that was really sage advice. I think most of us always want to please, and so we sometimes take on more than we can actually do. And then we end up either not doing a good job, or upsetting someone because we can't meet deadlines. I think a really very important piece of advice early on in my career was to understand my limitations and to learn to sometimes, in a very appropriate and nice way, to say no, either because you are too busy, or because the project is in an area where you might not have the requisite expertise.

 

The second bit of learning came from another senior partner. I had the opportunity after five years of working at King & Spaulding, (a large law firm in Atlanta ), to become a United States Attorney in Atlanta, in the Northern district of Georgia. Again, this job would require me to take another pay cut. Not only did it require me to take a pay cut, but at that point I was on the verge of being elected partner at King & Spaulding which would have meant that I would have been given a very substantial pay increase. A senior lawyer, Griffin Bell, who was the Attorney General of the United States under President Carter, gave me advice that I think is good for a lot of lawyers. He said: "the way that you have a good and rewarding career is to not be selfish . the law is a profession. It is not a calling. It is not a business and you undertake your legal work as life calls you to do."

His point was that the chance to enter public service is one of the highest callings a lawyer can have. His point of view was that some of the greatest lawyers of our time, from the founding fathers on, have been lawyers who have been dedicated to public service. That is something that has always stuck with me. It has been a very important piece of guidance and advice, and I've always followed it. I might not have been able to make as much money as some lawyers, but clearly, and there's no doubt in my mind, I've had a very rich career.

 

Just recently I read a biography of Alexander Hamilton, one of our founding fathers who was a great lawyer. He was killed in a dual with Aaron Burr and when he died he was nearly broke. He was one of the most sought after lawyers in New York at the time, but he couldn't give up public service. He was always taking on projects for George Washington, for the State of New York, for the government of the new country, etc. Hamilton was always taking on new projects. He would let his practice slide because he was always involved in public service. When he was killed he was virtually broke. He was one of the leading lawyers of his time and the only way his wife and family survived was because his clients, who had really appreciated him as he had done a lot of great things for them, got together and collected money to allow Mrs. Hamilton to live out her life without having to rely on charity. But it's amazing that one of the great lawyers of our time—one of our founding fathers—died virtually broke because he chose to devote his time to public service.

What advice would you give someone starting his or her first job?
Obviously one of the most important things you need to do (it sounds trite, but a lot of people don't do it) is work hard, and you are going to have to take your job seriously. But I think the other piece of advice that I would give someone is to always be honest with the people that you work with and for. Always do what you say you're going to do and always make certain that in doing what you are supposed to be doing—that you don't cheat or hurt anyone else. Just realize that your career is a marathon, it's not a sprint. The most important thing that you are going to have at the end of the day in your career—and the only thing that's really going to hold you in good stead as you move on in life—is not really whether you did this assignment or whether you did that assignment, or even whether you did an assignment better than someone else. It's going to be: Is this person someone that we can trust? Is this person someone that we can rely on? And is this person someone we would like to work with? The most important thing that you need to be able to preserve is your reputation and a lot of people don't understand that.

So what is most important thing for young people to know about the industry in which you currently work?
Well I work in the consumer products industry, but I'm a lawyer, so I am going to answer this question from a lawyer's perspective. I think that one of the things that has gotten a lot of companies into trouble over the past several years, and which has probably contributed to corporate scandals, is that the lawyers were nowhere to be found. The lawyers, who were supposed to be giving independent professional advice to the corporations didn't do so. Why didn't they? It wasn't necessarily that they were involved in criminal activity, but that they didn't want to give the honest tough advice that they needed to give because they were conflicted. They were making a lot of money and they didn't want to lose the money so they didn't act in a professional way. When you go to a professional, whether it is a lawyer or a doctor, you're going to that person because he or she can give you professional advice, and not just advice to make money. So I like to think that we're lawyers first and not business people. If we had wanted to be business people we would have gotten MBA degrees. I think there is a lot of opportunity in the legal profession. You can remain a lawyer or you can transition and go into the business world. The legal profession is a service profession. You serve your client and I think that there are ways that you can do that either in the private sector or in the public sector. It's a profession that I would encourage young people to consider.

What do you find most rewarding about your position today?
I have one client which is this organization. It's a client that I am really proud to represent. It's a client that is honest and ethical and which conducts business in an honest and ethical way. It happens to be a very profitable company, and a very large company, and being the General Counsel of a company like PepsiCo. (given the fact quite frankly that it is a very powerful company, not only in the United States but around the world) means that one can have a real impact on the legal profession.That gives me a great deal of satisfaction. I like doing the job that I am required to do for the shareholders of the company, but I also like the fact that a side benefit is that I can really have an impact on the profession, and I think that's good.