Working Together -- Eldec Man Leads Revival For Engineers In England

CUTLINE: BYRON ACOHIDO / SEATTLE TIMES: ELDEC CHAIRMAN MAX GELLERT MANS THE COMPANY DISPLAY BOOTH AT THE FARNBOROUGH AIR SHOW

COVENTRY, England - Billed as a hot-shot American manager, Dan Stockwell landed here in the industrial heart of Great Britain 15 months ago expecting to work miracles.

His mission impossible: Take a demoralized band of British electrical engineers and transform them into the cornerstone of a new company - a fleet-footed, world-class producer of electronic systems for the booming aircraft-manufacturing market.

``Basically, I was given two years to do a five-year job,'' Stockwell said.

Stockwell beat the deadline. The proof: a modern 28,000-square-foot engineering and manufacturing plant incongruously nestled in the middle of a sprawling tract of grimy World War II-era factory buildings.

The new plant, which opened in July, houses Dunlop-Eldec Electronics Ltd., or DE, a pioneering joint venture between Dunlop Aerospace Group, the British maker of aircraft landing gear, and Eldec Corp., the Lynnwood-based producer of electronic sensing devices and computerized ``control boxes'' that drive the landing-gear systems.

DE was born of compelling logic. Dunlop, primarily a manufacturer of mechanical parts, wanted to make a quantum leap with its token electronics capabilities; Eldec, which possessed precisely the expertise Dunlop sought, had been scouting around for a beachhead

to the lucrative, though politically perilous, European market.

``We sort of found each other,'' said Eldec Chairman Max Gellert.

With a new plant, 59 mostly new employees, state-of-the-art engineering-design computers and contracts worth $2.7 million, DE is positioned to grow steadily over the next several years into a $15-million a-year company generating 150 jobs, Gellert said.

Dunlop is a 51 percent partner, making DE a British company, a key to winning European contracts that frequently require British or European content.

If DE flourishes, it could well become a model for other medium-sized U.S. companies looking for a European foothold, particularly with the 1992 common market on the horizon.

Yet, those who would emulate Eldec would do well to ask Dan Stockwell how tough it is taking U.S.-style management principles abroad, where differences in culture and values - even in a country so closely linked to the United States in language and history - present hurdles not addressed in any textbooks.

An electrical engineer with deep-rooted entrepreneurial instincts (his work life began at age 10, mixing paint for his father's contracting business), Stockwell, 35, arrived in Coventry full of idealism.

He figured he quickly could shore up Dunlop's beleaguered crew of electrical engineers with new hires, then create a hybrid company employing the best aspects of the Dunlop system and the Eldec way of doing things.

He set a goal: DE boldly would offer landing-gear systems for which the mechanical and electronic parts were integrated, rather than being designed and produced separately, as is common.

From the first day, DE would gear up to deliver integrated systems in 30 percent less time than aircraft manufacturers typically expect for such parts.

``What we really had was size,'' Stockwell said. ``Being small, we should be able to react quickly, to throw resources at a project and get on it really fast.''

Stockwell, a self-taught manager who maintains files of articles on successful business ventures, knew that his biggest challenge would be creating a sense of ownership among workers in his vision of a spirited company operating on the leading edge of the industry.

What Stockwell did not anticipate was the depth to which morale had sunk among Dunlop's electrical engineers, long considered inferior cousins of their counterparts on the mechanical side of the company.

``We were in poor facilities, with inadequate equipment and we got very little prestige,'' said engineering supervisor Tony Fenton.

How poor? Fenton and his colleagues were exiled to a dingy corner of an ancient, cavernous machine shop, featuring a floor tilted at a 3 percent grade (the better to roll 1940s Jaguar autos down the assembly line) and gusts of carbon dust from the adjacent carbon-brake plant.

Nineteen engineers, divided into three ``design sections,'' shared two personal computers, performed mostly mundane parts-testing chores and almost never collaborated.

The rigid British social order, in which lineage can narrowly define a person's identity, was reflected in the office layout. Supervisors' offices faced regimented rows of desks with senior workers at the front and junior personnel at the rear.

``It was a bit Dickensian,'' said lead engineer Peter Hardee. ``There were metaphoric and, in some cases, physical walls between sections. There was very little communication going on, no cross-fertilization of ideas, really.''

With no new projects to work on in three years, ``morale hit rock bottom about three months before Dan arrived,'' said design engineer Graham Jones.

Into this arena, full of American ideals, stepped Stockwell. His very first action shocked his new charges and set the tone for a whirlwind of change; instead of booting one of the supervisors out of a treasured office, Stockwell took an empty desk at the back of one of the rows.

``To me that was a statement that he was coming in without regard to the traditional reward structure, nor to the us-and-them situation with management,'' Hardee said.

Stockwell soon learned that Dunlop, a subsidiary of BTR, a $9-billion-a-year British conglomerate, paid its electrical engineers on average 25 percent less than what they could earn at comparable companies in the British Midlands industrial area. As a result, turnover was rampant and continuity, a crucial element in achieving technological breakthroughs, was virtually nonexistent.

It was Stockwell's turn to be shocked. ``I had no idea a trained engineer could be paid so low,'' Stockwell said, adding that what really irritated him was the rationale for the low wages.

When Stockwell asked how Dunlop could justify paying one engineer less than $18,000 a year, he was told it was because the man was single and lived at home with his mother. He also was dismayed to see discrimination openly practiced when it came to women's pay.

Stockwell promised his troops he would champion an improved salary structure, something he's still working on. Towards that end, he convinced DE's board of directors to boost salary offers for top recruits.

He jettisoned the top-down organizational structure, which severely restricted promotional opportunities, and replaced it with a matrix structure brimming with advancement paths and the lure of higher compensation.

``Under the old system, there was no position I could be promoted into without someone leaving. I had no real career-progression path,'' said Hardee. ``With this matrix structure, everyone should be able to see a way up that doesn't depend on somebody retiring.''

The matrix also is designed to free up the best talent from anywhere in the company to work on a hot project.

Supervisor Fenton, for instance, previously directed one engineer and concerned himself strictly with one type of product. Under Stockwell's matrix, Fenton operates like the manager of a baseball team. He's in charge of a group of engineers, whom he can assign to an array of projects.

``We're making people more versatile,'' Fenton said. ``We can move people around as needed. It makes the work much more interesting for the engineers, and they don't get stuck month after month on the same project.''

The new office space - sparkling clean, brightly lit and divided into spacious work stations with a new computer for each engineer - complemented the new organizational structure.

``Now there's lots of cross-fertilization of ideas and we've got a much wider selection of people to throw at a big project,'' said Hardee. ``Everybody is familiar enough with what's going on to handle just about anything in this department.''

Hardee was on the verge of quitting Dunlop, but decided to stick around to see how the joint venture would work out. ``I am quite excited about Dan's ideas,'' he said. ``He has put into practice a lot of the management theory I had only heard about or read about.''

If Stockwell had any illusions about his ability to persuade swiftly every one of his British employees to abandon regimentation in favor of free-wheeling innovation, they were dashed each night when he went home to his wife, Patty, and sons Rob, 10, and Casey, 8.

Life in the quaint British borough of Leamington is quite distinct from suburban Bothell, and each day brought new insights into the British fixation on routine.

Take the story of the weight room. When Stockwell discovered that there was a public gymnasium two blocks from his home, he trotted down in workout togs one day after work only to learn an hourlong indoctrination was required to use the weight-lifting facilities.

Stockwell, a three-sport athlete in high school, told the attendant he would gladly sign a liability waiver. No luck. He took his case to the gym manager to no avail. Finally, Stockwell agreed to the indoctrination, only to be told he'd have to come back at midday, the only time it was offered. He has yet to pump iron in Leamington.

The point was not lost on Stockwell. Even with the newest building in Coventry, even with the fanciest computers and word spreading about the dynamic U.S.-style work place, DE operates in a very methodical society.

In an effort to keep DE nimble, Stockwell slayed a few more sacred cows.

He regularly treats workers to drinks and food at a nearby pub to celebrate project milestones. He keeps a menu from a local pizza joint on his desk ready to order out for engineers who stay beyond the 4 o'clock quitting time.

In an especially blatant violation of the unwritten British code that says management never mixes socially with staff, he even threw a Christmas party at his home. About 40 DE employees showed up, no doubt curious to observe their eccentric American boss at close quarters. The last guest left at 4 a.m.

Stockwell, an Idaho native who earned his engineering degree at the University of Washington, misses no opportunity to preach about his vision for the company and what is personally at stake for individuals. And he leads by example; most days he's the first to arrive and the last to leave.

``You have to become a cheerleader and try not to look like a fool doing it,'' he said.

The result: DE has developed an aura. ``The new guys coming in say this is definitely the best place to work in the immediate area,'' said engineer Jones. ``Dan's definitely tried to mix it up with the guys, something we've never gotten from guys at his level before. But I haven't quite figured him out. I don't know if it's a management technique or if it's natural.''

Perhaps the answer is that Stockwell is a natural leader, unabashedly American in outlook and style. He is intent on doing whatever it takes to ignite the spark that has taken countless U.S. companies, such as Microsoft, Apple Computer, even Eldec itself, from garage to powerhouse status.

``If I did anything, I provided the opportunity for these guys to get excited about their work,'' Stockwell said. ``I believe these guys wanted to work this way if somebody gave them the chance.

``When I first came here, the sense of urgency that goes with a real busy place did not exist. Now, one and a half years later, it is not uncommon for me to go home at 7 o'clock and say goodbye to people. That's a helluva change and I'm pretty proud of that.''

Yet, Stockwell is the first to point out that DE has a long way to go.

DE engineers will need some time to learn how to get their new, fully networked computer system out of first gear. Meanwhile, Stockwell and his assistant, Mike Foster, have been working on streamlining the myriad steps involved in completing a complex engineering design.

The first new business DE landed, a contract to design the landing gear control box for the European Fighter Aircraft, hinted at its potential. U.S. suppliers have been banned from the EFA program, so Eldec wouldn't have a piece of the pie without its minority stake in the British company.

Still, Stockwell is not content, and the DE engineers know it. ``I think what has happened is that, for various reasons, Dan hasn't been able to go as far as he might have, basically because he's not the guy who controls the finances,'' observed Hardee.

Moreover, it is beginning to look like DE's evolution into a company focused primarily on producing integrated electronic/mechanical aircraft systems will not occur during Stockwell's tour of duty, which will end sometime next year. Plans call for him to be replaced by a UK-based manager, which has raised this concern internally: Can anybody but a hard-charging American sustain the momentum Stockwell has worked so hard to create?

``Some people around here haven't converted to the new ideas and the new style Dan advocates,'' said Hardee. ``If their influence is allowed, things could slip.''

Added Jones: ``I think what Dan has accomplished is quite tremendous, really. But I think he's a bit of a work machine. Whether we can sustain what he started depends on who they get to replace him.''