Tom Williams served as the company's finance man- ager, in charge of accounts receivable and payable, personnel, payroll and benefits administration, and funds management (on both a domestic and international level). Tom had grown up in Kentucky and had a bachelor's degree in accounting. Williams spoke no German and had never trav- eled to Germany. He was married and had two sons. Lloyd Forrest served as the company's production manager. He had a bachelor's degree in plant engineering and had 15 years of experience as a plant manager of a local medical equipment manufacturer. Lloyd had also grown up in Kentucky, and he, his wife, and two sons lived only a few miles from the company's offices. Forrest did not speak German, nor had he ever been to Germany. Bob Hobson served as national sales manager and over- saw three regional salespeople, two of whom worked from their homes in New Jersey and California. The third sales- person worked out of the company's offices in Kentucky. Bob had a bachelor's degree in business administration from a pri- vate college in Indiana and had ten years' sales experience. Hobson came from a wealthy Kentucky family and had recently married. He did not speak German, but had made a brief trip to Germany to visit company headquarters. Dan Offerman grew up in Kentucky, had a bachelor's degree in business and banking from a local private univer- sity, and began his career with Zelte in an internal sales position. After one year, the company promoted him to marketing manager and sent Dan to Germany for two months of management training and indoctrination. Offer- man spoke German fluently and had traveled extensively in Germany both for pleasure and while on a university- sponsored semester work-study program. While working at the company, Offerman completed an MBA at the local state university. He was single and the youngest member of the Zelte USA management team. Concerns Developed Meindle had always maintained tight control over all opera- tions of Zelte USA. He centralized all decision making in his office. He had a number of habits that the managers felt were mildly annoying at best, to insulting-and possibly illegal at worst. Meindle would review every piece of mail that was delivered to the company and personally distribute it to each employee it impacted. He reviewed and signed every purchase order, whether the purchasing manager had issued it for a new piece of capital equipment or for bath- room and cleaning supplies. Meindle intentionally had the offices constructed with large, southern exposure windows, so that all office lighting could be turned off on sunny days in order to save on electrical bills. He routinely instructed the person picking up the daily mail at the post office to grab a handful of rubber bands, so the company would not have to purchase them. He did not allow the purchase of pens or pencils, but rather made it the responsibility of the sales staff to collect these items at conventions and trade shows. Meindle often degraded female employees by saying things such as "I don't know why I ever hired women to work for this company." In meetings, Meindle often spoke in German to the three employees who understood Ger- man despite the presence of other non-German speakers. He expected all office personnel to take lunch with him from 12:00 to 12:30 in a dining room separate from a din- ing room for plant employees. He belittled any office employee who ate with the plant employees. Many Zelte USA employees strongly disliked Meindle. Many referred to him as "The Nazi" or "Herr Meindle," a specific refer- ence to Nazi leader Josef Mengele. One employee stated that Meindle was one of the "Boys from Brazil." [The Boys from Brazil, a 1978 thriller/drama starring Gregory Peck, directed by Franklin Schaffner, and based on the best- selling novel (1976) of the same name by Ira Levin. The movie centers on the plans of Nazi war criminal Josef Men- gele to create a new Hitler through a sinister global conspiracy.] Shortly after his separation from Margot, Hans Mein- dle began to display behaviors that particularly concerned the four departmental managers. The four generally worked well with Meindle, having learned to work within his expectations, even though disagreements occurred. Although Meindle was the general manager, he remained active in sales, personally serving Zelte's three largest cus- tomers; all their customers in the Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC, corridor; and selected companies in Mon- treal and Toronto. He refused to allow another salesperson to call on these customers or even to talk to them when they phoned. Zelte USA (and Zelte GmbH) had developed a reputa- tion of providing the highest quality products available in the industry, but also had developed a reputation for high prices and unreliable delivery. Meindle personally deter- mined pricing for every OEM customer, with some input from the individual salesperson serving that particular account. The company instructed salespeople to promise delivery of most products within 5 to 6 weeks, but company experience generally indicated a wait of 12 to 14 weeks for most first-time orders, and waits of 24 weeks were not unrealistic. Meindle fired two regional salespeople for openly disagreeing on sales policy at a staff meeting. Unfor- tunately for the company, each of these salespeople had developed extremely close relationships with their cus tomers, and the company had to creatively explain its actions to maintain the customers' accounts. At one point, the company faced increasing costs due to fluctuations in the US$ to DM exchange rate. For a while, Meindle decided that the company would "eat" the increased costs and not increase prices to customers. Eventually, the U.S. dollar weakened too much, and the company needed to increase prices to maintain the prof- itability of some accounts with the slimmest of margins. In an abrupt move, Meindle secretly attempted to push price increases onto the company's largest customer by increasing the per-item price on invoices, but never noti fied the customer's purchasing department. His action greatly angered this customer, and it abruptly cancelled US$2 million in orders. This large customer represented approximately 50 percent of Zelte USA's annual sales. Within three weeks and a visit from Dr. Fischer, the com-