On an innocent Saturday in April, we woke up in the middle of a 'surprise' snowstorm that dumped 7.5 inches of snow in our neighborhood.

Two days later the temperature hovered around 70 degrees.

One of the oldest expressions about the weather in New England is: If you don't like the weather, wait an hour and it will change.

This photo says it all.

Elements of this story may have been a little embarrassing to me at one time. But today, the events I’m about to share are a source of pride.

Quite a transition.

With the perspective of history to help me, I realize that not only did I have nothing to be embarrassed about, but I really did I have a lot to be proud of.

Coincidently, I recently had lunch with a longtime friend, Jerry in Cincinnati, where the story takes place, and as soon as I indicated that I was going to write a blog “about the day that I..” he interrupted me and said: ‘the day you robbed a bank.’ 

So, I did rob a bank, and I have a validating witness, and here’s the story.

SETTING THE STAGE

I was President of a franchise restaurant group, and I learned the hard way that the holding company that had purchased the company from the founders had potentially "questionable" financing. Plus, that holding company spent a fortune looking for additional sites in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio.

Thousands of dollars and thousands of hours were invested in the expansion venture, and only one new location was actually developed in the Columbus market and three in the Cincinnati market. But with the size of the investment of time and money, there probably should have been a dozen new locations to justify the effort.

Judgement day came in a couple of waves because of the 'financing.’ 

The first signs of trouble came when I realized that the next payroll might be in jeopardy. I was in shock, and shortly I was sort of blackmailed to fix it.

Independently of the corporate entity, five of us were investors in a brand-new restaurant, which everyone hoped and assumed would be the gold mine of the company: new building, great location. 

But it turned out to be the first time I was held hostage. One of the principals of the holding company indicated that if I signed my share over to him, he’d purchase it for the amount of the payroll that we had coming due. 

At the time I knew he was fleecing me out of more than $100,000 in equity in the new store, but I made the tough decision to accept his offer. 

We made the payroll. Karma does exist because even though he expected to make a killing with the additional share, when the new store opened up, it was a complete bust and ended up doing less than half of the projected volume, so he lost big time. I mean big time. Karma for fleecing me?

FINANCING WOES

The next sign of trouble was when the holding company discussed placing the restaurant entity into Chapter 11, also known as ‘debtor in possession.’ Not good for the ego, not good for business and not good for employee engagement, if you know what I mean. There was enough revenue to operate the business, but not all the businesses and not with the 'financing' that was now totally exposed.

As part of the hardball approach the holding company was talking with one of the lenders to stay out of Chapter 11, the holding company owners threatened to close a restaurant a day, unless or until they offered us some relief. 

THE EMPLOYEE MEETING: DON'T QUIT

This ‘threat,’ to close a store a day, believe it or not, was made mere hours before I was scheduled to host the Annual Employee Meeting. I remember pulling over into the parking lot of a CVS between the lawyer’s office and the meeting location. 

I pulled out a card with a poem on it, Don’t Quit. Silently read it to myself and then drove to the meeting to do one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do: inspire the company employees while knowing that there might not be a company in a couple of days or week. 

There were about 250 employees at the meeting, and I got up and read the poem to them, and then explained we were in a challenging situation, but if we all worked together as a team, we’d survive and thrive. Not a fun night for me, but definitely a sense of pride that I was in a very tough situation, but apparently I was tougher than the situation.

As I left the meeting and headed home to get ready for the next day, it was too late for me to acknowledge that some of the principals were clueless. The job I was tasked with, by me, was to do my best to save the company and the one thousand jobs at stake. It required quick thinking for both short term and long-term impact. On the long-term side, I connected with another franchisee in Pennsylvania that I knew might be interested in acquiring the 20 stores and we started a dialogue.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT TESTED

On the short-term side, we needed to keep the business operating and try to work our way out of the mess we were thrust into.

A federally appointed trustee who ‘took over’ the company hired a sharpshooting restaurant expert to dig deep into how the stores operated, what the finances were like and how management was doing. It was kind of like the current DOGE digging.

The good news for me personally is that the hired gun reported back to the Trustee that he could find nothing amiss at the restaurant level, and in fact was surprised at how efficiently the stores operated and how there was no waste or neglect or purchasing problems. 

In a nutshell: I was extremely proud of those findings because they validated that as an operator, I was competent, but it clearly indicated that those above me were not. (True story: several years later, the trustee hired me as a hired gun to perform the same functions for another Chapter 11 filing because he was so impressed with the report).

So, you are asking, how did I rob a bank to pay the bills in this experience? Read on.

When our food vendor was notified that the company had filed Chapter 11, they did what any vendor would do: they stopped delivering food.

Hard to run restaurants without food, know what I mean?

I had a solid relationship with the president of the local operation of a national distributor, and after we met in his office and shook hands, we agreed that to get the trucks rolling again, I would go our bank, get a certified check for the next day’s deliveries, hand deliver it to him at the warehouse, and the trucks would roll.

ENTERING THE BANK

Part of the embarrassment of the situation was that my personal bank account was at the same branch bank that the business account was held. That meant, on the first day of this project, I had to go in to my bank, say hello to everyone and sit down with the branch manager and request a certified check and explain the reason. Talk about creating a buzz!

Our Chapter 11 status made this a paperwork nightmare for everyone, and everyone needed to call everyone, including the lawyer, the court, the bank headquarters, and who knows who else.

That day it took about two hours from the time I parked at the bank, until the time I left for the distributor with a $24,215 certified check. 

I delivered the check, the trucks rolled. We arranged to wire transfer in the future on a daily basis the amount needed for food, so that particular vendor crisis was resolved.

About two weeks after I walked out of the bank with a $24,215 certified check, the finance department at the bank headquarters called me and indicated that something with the paperwork was not correct, and asked me to please return the $24,215 to the bank: it had been given to me with being deducted from our account for some reason and they couldn’t reverse the charges unless I brought them a check for the amount.

BANK ROBBER STATUS ACHIEVED

When I said no, I was officially a bank robber.

The federal government protected me because no one would be authorized to expend funds without the trustee’s approval, so I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

There was also no legal recourse for the bank: they screwed up. Not sure if I was proud or embarrassed to be a bank robber.

After several months of negotiations and lots of inspections and financial reviews, the Pennsylvania franchisee got approval from the court to purchase the restaurants out of bankruptcy. I had to do three more things to make that happen.

1. I had to sign a two-year contract to stay with the new franchise owner, so continuity would be assured. He had no intention of moving to Ohio.
2. I had to sign another zillion forms in court to make it official. I was the only company executive who bothered to attend the proceedings.
3. I had to close one of the newest stores in London, Ohio due to some clause in the lease agreement. 

VIOLATION OF A COURT ORDER

In court, although the federal judge ordered me to close the store that day, the new owners didn’t want me to, because if it was closed that day, it would be lost to them forever, and about 75 people would be out of a job. 

If it was open the next day, it was theirs. Since I had already robbed a bank, my decision process was fairly simple.

What would you do? My choice was to either obey a federal judge or please my new ‘bosses.’ 

My decision made me popular with the new guys as well as the employees of the store.

That's right, as icing on the cake to robbing the bank, I also defied a court order and kept the store open and waited for federal Marshalls to show up at my home to take me away. I’m still waiting

That day pretty much ended my career as a criminal, and as embarrassing as being in charge of a company that filed Chapter 11 might have been, I’m actually proud of the way I handled the unbelievable pressure, with little guidance, and made the right difficult choices and decisions at every turn.

I also remember thinking the following thought on the way home from the court: 

I had always believed that I was intrinsically a good leader, but after this experience, I knew it for fact. My theories, cliches, and concepts of leadership had just passed what some would consider an ultimate test. 

And I didn’t just pass the test; I passed it with flying colors.

I am still damn proud that I did.