ONCE A THIEF NOT ALWAYS A THIEF
I’ll confess, I was a little afraid. I’d just become the Chief Executive Officer of Schwartz Ring and Bearing Company, the firm that my grandfather had founded thirty-five years previously. It wasn’t that I felt unprepared; I was twenty-seven years old with a Masters of Business Administration. I had worked summers in all of the departments of the company from the time I was seventeen until I’d graduated with my MBA then I’d started full time. Most recently I’d been vice-president of marketing headquartering in our Birmingham office. My father had followed my grandfather as the head of the firm but with his recent, unexpected death the mantle fell to me, I was coming home to our Illinois home office. Schwartz Ring and Bearing was a family owned company, all the stock save 100 shares …