“Skyscrapers” reflects my experience as the CEO of a big-city independent non-profit for eight years. During that time, I became more aware of the role CEOs of for-profits played and the long years of ladder-climbing most of them put in before they reached the top. I also became aware of the disastrous effects of corporate mismanagement. My non-profit, which distributed 160,000 free books to inner-city kids each year, ended up homeless as a result of corporate greed at Enron, the consulting firm in which my non-profit was housed.
CEOs are today’s rulers, although they rule economic empires rather than lands and estates. Few inherit that title: most fight to acquire it, keep it, and make it larger and richer. They are people who insist on being in control. In “Skyscrapers” I contrasted a male and a female CEO from very different backgrounds but in the same industry. I removed their ability to control events.
In Vern Webb’s case, his seamy background resurfaced to haunt him. Ellie Smith was struck by random violence. The rest of the novel traces their efforts to regain their control and their positions. It reveals the impact their past and present actions have on those around them. Since they are influential people, repercussions are not confined to family and business associates, but reverberate throughout the city of Powhaten. In watching how each of them fights to regain control, the reader discovers how each of them acquired power in the first place, and what their true character is.
Ellie Smith is a more typical high achiever: an immigrant rejecting her impoverished background, she has single-mindedly driven herself upward. She is plotting to take over Vern Webb’s business as the novel begins. When she suffers a gunshot wound, she is forced to question this single-mindedness.
Vern Webb is the more complex character. In his case, rejection of his past was very personal. He embraced the hippie world, then the underworld. At some point, he used his drug proceeds to get clean and to send himself through college – quite a remarkable achievement. But Vern was compelled by greed, and thinking he could hide an illegal operation successfully opened the door to jealousy, the lust for revenge, and his ultimate destruction.
Since 1991, I have served as a Director of a large metropolitan hospital where I mingle with successful for-profit CEO’s on a regular basis. These are men and women of high morals and strong ethical beliefs, as is the CEO of the hospital itself. Corporate greed is a failure of individuals, but it is not the dominant culture among business leaders.
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