This came out last week thought you might want to read.

DS

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Buehler, Craig
Sent:	Wednesday, October 24, 2001 1:11 PM
To:	Schoolcraft, Darrell
Subject:	Texas Monthly November 2001: How Enron Blew It

How Enron Blew It
Less than a year ago, the Houston-based energy behemoth had everything: money, power, glitz, smarts, new ideas, and a CEO who wanted to make it the most important company in the world. Now its stock is down, wall street is bearish, and the CEO is gone. What went wrong?
by Mimi Swartz </mag/issues/authors/mimiswartz.php>
THE ENRON SKYSCRAPER NEAR THE SOUTH END OF HOUSTON'S DOWNTOWN feels like the international headquarters of the best and the brightest. The lobby in no way resembles the hushed, understated entryways of the old-fashioned oil companies, like Shell and Texaco nearby. Enron, in contrast, throbs with modernity. The people hustling in and out of the elevators are black, white, brown; Asian, Middle Eastern, European, African, as well as American-born. They are young, mostly under 35, and dressed in the aggressively casual uniform of the tech industry-the guys wear khakis, polo shirts, and Banana Republic button-downs. Almost preposterously fit, they move through the building intently, like winners. Enron is nothing if not energetic: A Big Brother-size TV screen frantically reports on the stock market near a bank of elevators, while another hefty black television relaying the same news greets people entering from the garage. A sculpture of the corporate symbol, an E tipped at a jaunty angle, radiates colors as it spins frenetically on its axis; a Starbucks concession on the ground floor keeps everyone properly caffeinated. Multicolored, inspirational flags hang from the ceiling, congratulating Enron on its diversity and its values; one more giant banner between elevator banks declares Enron's simple if grandiose goal: "From the World's Leading Energy Company to . . . The World's Leading Company!"
For a while, that future seemed guaranteed, as Enron transformed itself from a stodgy, troubled pipeline company in 1985 to a trading colossus in 2000. It was a Wall Street darling, with a stock price that increased 1,700 percent in that sixteen-year period, with revenues that increased from $40 billion to $100 billion. "The very mention of the company in energy circles throughout the world creates reactions ranging from paralyzing fear to envy," notes a 2001 report from Global Change Associates, a firm that provides market intelligence to the energy business.
This Enron was largely the creation of Jeff Skilling, a visionary determined to transform American business. Hired sixteen years ago as a consultant by then-CEO Ken Lay, Skilling helped build a company that disdained the old formula of finding energy in the ground, hauling it in pipelines, and then selling it to refineries and other customers. Instead, it evolved into a company that could trade and market energy in all its forms, from natural gas to electricity, from wind to water. If you had a risky drilling venture, Enron would fund it for a piece of the action. If you wanted your megacorporation's energy needs analyzed and streamlined, Enron could do the job. If you were a Third World country with a pitiful infrastructure and burgeoning power needs, Enron was there to build and build. Basically, if an idea was new and potentially-and fantastically-lucrative, Enron wanted the first crack. And with each success, Enron became ever more certain of its destiny. The company would be the bridge between the old economy and the high-tech world, and in February of this year, Skilling reaped his reward when he succeeded Lay as chief executive officer. Enron, says Skilling, "was a great marriage of the risk-taking mentality of the oil patch with the risk-taking mentality of the financial markets."
The Enron story reflects the culture that drove American business at the end of the twentieth century. Like the high-tech companies it emulated, Enron was going to reinvent the American business model and, in turn, the American economy. Maybe it was natural that this Brave New World also produced a culture that was based on absolutes: not just the old versus the new, but the best versus the mediocre, the risk takers versus the complacent-those who could see the future versus those who could not. The key was investing in the right kind of intellectual capital. With the best and the brightest, a company couldn't possibly go wrong.
Or could it? Today Enron's stock trades at around $35, down from a high of $80 in January. The press cast Enron as the archvillain of California's energy crisis last spring, and Skilling caught a blueberry pie in the face for his relentless defense of the free market. A long-troubled power plant project in India threatened the company's global ambitions. Telecommunications, in which Enron was heavily invested, imploded. Wall Street analysts who once touted the company questioned its accounting practices. Some of the change in Enron's fortunes can be attributed to the economic downturn in uncertain times that has afflicted all of American business. But the culture that the company created and lived by cannot escape blame.
ENRON, JEFF SKILLING SAYS, HAD "a totally different way of thinking about business-we got it." At Enron, in fact, you either "got it" or you were gone-it was as simple as black and white. It is not coincidental, then, that the color scheme of Skilling's River Oaks mansion mirrors the corporation he once headed. Here, the living room's white walls shimmer against the mahogany floors. Black leather trims the edge of snowy carpets. Billowy sofas set off the jet-black baby grand. In the entry, white orchids cascade from a black vase on a black pedestal table that in turn pools onto cold, white marble. There is only one off-color note: After almost twenty years, Jeff Skilling is no longer associated with Enron, having resigned abruptly after just six months as CEO. Once, Skilling was hailed as the next Jack Welch (General Electric's masterful CEO), as one of Worth magazine's best CEO's in America (anointed in 2001), and even as a daredevil who hosted the kind of unchained adventure junkets in which, a friend told BusinessWeek, "someone could actually get killed." Today, he sounds more like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning. "I had no idea what I'd let go of," Skilling says of all the personal sacrifices he made while retooling Enron.
From a black chair in the white library, across from a huge black and white photograph of his daughter and two sons, Skilling clarifies. The demands of working 24-7 for Enron caused him to ignore his personal finances. Divorced, he lived in a 2,200-square-foot house without a microwave or a dishwasher. He almost missed his brother's wedding. "Learning a foreign language-I never learned a foreign language!" he exclaims. He never once took his youngest son to school. "I'm interested in the kids. You don't do kids in fifteen-minute scheduling." Travel: "You can't go to Africa for a week and get anything out of it!" Skilling includes the study of architecture and design on his list of missed opportunities, then he stops and sighs. "I'm not sure that fulfillment in life is compatible with a CEO's job," he says, finally. Then his eyes lock on mine, and his voice, which had softened, regains its pragmatic edge. "It would have been easy to stay," he says. "But that would not have been good for me."
He's a smallish, ruddy-faced man who keeps himself at fighting weight, handsome in the way of corporate titans, with piercing cheekbones and that assiduously stolid gaze. But the impatience Skilling once reserved for cautious underlings and dull-witted utility company executives is now targeted at reporters who have labeled his resignation "bizarre" and associates who are bitterly skeptical of his need for family time. His shrug stretches the limits of his shimmering blue button-down, and his matching blue eyes look put upon. "I'm surprised," he says, "that people have so much trouble understanding this."
PEOPLE WHO PASSED THROUGH DOWNTOWN HOUSTON in the late eighties or early nineties couldn't help but notice a funny and, for its time, novel scene unfolding throughout the workday at the base of the Enron Building. From nine to five and before and after, you could see people slipping out of the pristine silver skyscraper to smoke. They perched on the chrome banisters or lurked near the glass doors at the entry, puffing like mad. They always looked hurried and furtive, even ashamed. Whatever people knew about Enron in those days (and most people didn't know much), it was often associated with that scene: Enron boasted one of the first nonsmoking corporate headquarters in Houston, and there couldn't have been clearer evidence of its break with the energy world of the past. What macho engineer would have put up with such humiliation?
But this company was a child of another time, that period in the mid-eighties when chaos enveloped the gas business. Federal deregulation of natural gas turned a steady, secure industry, in which gas pipeline companies frequently enjoyed a monopoly in portions of the areas that they served, into a volatile free-for-all. The situation was compounded five years later by federal deregulation of the pipeline business. So it happened that a gentlemanly gas pipeline company, Houston Natural Gas (HNG) found itself under attack from Coastal Corporation, Oscar Wyatt's less than gentlemanly firm. HNG was then run by Lay, a sturdy, taciturn former economics professor and Transco chief operating officer who had a passion for military strategy. (His doctoral thesis at the University of Houston was on supply and demand in the Vietnam War.) Lay, who was from Missouri and never succumbed-at least outwardly-to Texas brashness, had done well enough: Thanks to canny expansions, HNG's pipelines stretched from Florida to California and throughout the state of Texas.
HNG fended off Coastal, but to protect the company from other takeover attempts, Lay nimbly engineered the sale of HNG in 1985 to a friendly Nebraska pipeline concern called InterNorth, one of the largest pipeline companies in the country at the time. Then, a funny thing happened: HNG started acting in a way that would characterize the company for years to come-a lot like Coastal. What the Nebraskans blithely labeled "the purchase" was being called "the merger" back in Houston, and before long, following some particularly brutal politicking between Omaha and Houston, the company's center of gravity started shifting toward Texas, and shortly after that, Ken Lay was running a new company called Enron. "Over time it became clear that Lay had a better vision of the future," says one person associated with Enron at that time. "He never fought change. He embraced change."
Lay had won, but what exactly did that mean? Enron was saddled with massive debt from the takeover attempt, and thanks to deregulation, no longer had exclusive use of its pipelines. Without new ideas-for that matter, a whole new business plan-the company could be finished before it really even got started.
LIKE MANY PEOPLE WHO TEAMED UP WITH ENRON IN THE EIGHTIES, Jeff Skilling had spent a lot of time in the Midwest, and he was self-made-at fourteen he had been the chief production director at a start-up TV station in Aurora, Illinois. (His mother would drop him off there every day after school.) "I liked being successful when I was working, and I was smart," he told BusinessWeek earlier this year. But unlike many of his Enron colleagues, Skilling wasn't deliberate and soft-spoken and happy to go home at five o'clock; he was anxious and excitable, and nothing, but nothing excited him more than what he would come to call "intellectual capital." He loved being smart, and he loved being surrounded by smart people. He graduated from Southern Methodist University, went into banking-assets and liability management-and took on Harvard Business School, where he graduated in the top 5 percent of his class. Then Skilling took the next step on what was then the new, souped-up path to American success: He joined Manhattan's McKinsey and Company as a business consultant, and that is where Ken Lay found him in 1985.
It is often said of Lay that his instincts for hiring the best are flawless, and his choice of Skilling probably saved the company. Skilling was above all an expert at markets and how they worked. While everyone else was worrying about the gluts and the shortages that defined the gas industry, he alone saw the parallels between gas and other businesses. And so in a world where credit was nearly impossible to come by, Skilling came up with what he called the Gas Bank, which contractually guaranteed both the supply and the price of gas to a network of suppliers and consumers. Enron would not be a broker but a banker. It would buy and sell the gas itself and assume the risk involved. And Enron would make money on transactions, much like an investment bank would.
Skilling worked up some numbers and found them "absolutely compelling." Then the McKinsey consultant took the idea to a meeting of about 25 Enron executives. He had a one-page presentation. "Almost to a person," Skilling says, "they thought it was stupid." Almost. After Skilling left the meeting dejected, he walked Ken Lay to an elevator and apologized. Lay listened and then said, "Let's go."
The Gas Bank was not an overnight success. For months Skilling woke up in a cold sweat, sure he had ruined not only his career but the careers of dozens of colleagues who had assisted him. In fact, he had come upon one of those divides that seem to define his life: "I believed this whole world would be different, a huge breakthrough" is the way Skilling puts it today, and even if he is typically immodest, he was right. Fairly soon after launching, the company sold $800 million worth of gas in a week. True to Skilling's character, success turned out to be a matter of old versus new: He says the joke around Enron was that if a company's CEO was under fifty, "We were in." And he was in too: In 1990 Skilling finally left McKinsey and joined Enron as the head of Enron Finance Corporation, a new division created just for him. In 1991 that company closed a deal that earned $11 million in profit. After that, says Skilling, "we never looked back."
Skilling and Lay also realized that the Gas Bank couldn't work unless it had a trading component. Myriad trades were needed to build the market that would make the project go. But by buying and selling enormous quantities of gas, Enron not only constructed a market but almost instantly came to dominate it. The company had the best contacts, the best intelligence, and the best access to supplies. That, in turn, attracted more customers who wanted to be part of the play. With so many customers in its pocket, Enron could better predict the direction of the market and could use that knowledge to make trades for its own benefit-Enron could in effect bet on which way the price of gas would go, as one might do with pork bellies or soybeans, but with startling accuracy, thereby generating profits higher than anyone could have ever imagined.
THIS CHANGE COULD NEVER HAVE OCCURRED without another change Skilling had made: He created, within Enron, a new culture to match its new trading business. The idea was to build a "knowledge-based business," which demanded a skill set not exactly prized by Enron's employees from the old HNG days. Most were deliberate, cautious, responsible, somewhat defensive people, most of them men, of course-the kind of people you'd expect to find working in an industry regulated by the federal government. But now the company needed bolder people for its bold new era: that included anyone who wanted to make money-lots of money-for themselves and for the company. "Enron was going to create a niche for itself or die," one former executive explains. "The people who had narrow views eventually were forced out, because if they had narrow views about other things, they had narrow views about the market."
Skilling wanted smart people but not just any smart people. He wanted the smartest people from schools like Harvard, Stanford, and maybe, Rice. And because his firm was now acting more like a bank than a pipeline company, he wanted to draw from the pool of recruits that would be attracted to the biggest and best investment banks, like Merrill Lynch or Credit Suisse First Boston. In addition to being smart, Enron people were also supposed to be "aggressive." You were right for Enron if you didn't want to wait until you were thirty to close your own deals or move up in an organization.
You could see what he was looking for on "Super Saturdays" at the Houston headquarters: eight fifty-minute interviews with ten minute breaks in between-the company might herd as many as four hundred people through in just one day. They were scored from 1 to 5 on their smarts, their problem-solving ability, their passion for hard work, and what at Enron was called "a sense of urgency." People who scored less than 2.5 were scratched. The shrewdest candidates knew how to work Enron before they were even hired: These were the types that automatically turned down the company's first offer, knowing Enron would come back with more. The starting salary was around $80,000. Maybe it wasn't a fortune-yet-but the signing bonus, about $20,000, was more than enough for a lease on the obligatory Porsche Boxster or one of the lofts being renovated close to downtown. (Enron people didn't live in far-flung suburbs. Suburbs were uncool and too far from the office.)
For the lucky winners, Enron offered the corporate equivalent of a gifted-and-talented program. New associates learned the latest techniques for structuring energy deals, and there were rotations at Enron offices around the globe. The hours were long, but every possible need was taken care of. A company concierge handled all the things important people couldn't be bothered with: picking up dry cleaning or prescriptions, shining shoes, cleaning the house, planning a vacation. Of course, a lot of people who worked for Enron never got to take vacations-they were too busy making money-but they could use the company gym and the company's personal trainers. If they were overweight or wanted to quit smoking, they could join Enron's Wellness Program. Massages were offered six days a week, from seven in the morning until ten at night. "They were so cutting edge," rhapsodizes someone involved with the company health care program at the time. "They really thought about the psychology and what it took to keep these people going."
Skilling handed out titles analogous to those at Wall Street firms-analysts, associates, directors, and managing directors-but everyone knew that those titles didn't really matter. Money did. Instead of competitive salaries and decent bonuses, Enron offered competitive salaries and merit-based bonuses-with no cap. "If you really worked hard and delivered results, you could make a lot of money," says Ken Rice, who stayed with Enron for 21 years until resigning recently as the head of the company's faltering broadband division. Or, as the saying goes, you got to eat what you killed. Gas traders with two or three years of experience could wind up with a $1 million bonus. And the more you produced, the closer you got to Jeff: Real hot dogs joined him glacier hiking in Patagonia, Land Cruiser racing in Australia, or off-road motorcycling in a re-creation of the Baja 1,000 race, ending at a spectacular Mexican villa. "Every time he'd speak, I'd believe everything he'd say," one loyalist says.
And why not? By 1995 Enron had become North America's largest natural-gas merchant, controlling 20 percent of the market. But at a company where the buzzword was "aggressive," that was no place to stop: Skilling and Lay believed the Gas Bank model could easily be applied to the electricity business. Firmly committed to the notion that a deregulated market meant better service at lower prices for consumers (and untold profits for Enron), they began barnstorming the country, pressing their case with entrenched power company presidents (who, with their multimillion-dollar salaries and monopoly service areas, had little incentive to change) and energy regulators (who were somewhat more receptive, thanks in part to Enron's generous lobbying efforts).
But the biggest winner of all was probably Jeff Skilling. In 1997 Ken Lay made him the president and chief operating officer of the company. By then, the division known as Enron Capital and Trade Resources was the nations largest wholesale buyer and seller of natural gas and electricity. The division had grown from two hundred to two thousand employees, and revenues from $2 billion to $7 billion. "Mr. Skilling's experience so far with the turmoil in the industry has convinced him that he is on the right track," the New York Times noted. Everyone would certainly have thought so: Enron and Skilling had totally transformed one industry and were well on their way to transforming another.
"FIRING UP AN IDEA MACHINE; Enron Is Encouraging the Entrepreneurs Within," sang the New York Times in 1999. "In the staid world of regulated utilities and energy companies, Enron Corp is that gate-crashing Elvis," crowed Fortune in 2000. Wall Street was demanding tech-size growth on a tech timetable, and Enron, in 2000, obliged with second quarter earnings of $289 million, up 30 percent from the previous year. That year the company seemed to discover a market a minute: Under Skilling, Enron was trading coal, paper, steel, and even weather. No one blinked when a London wine bar became an Enron client. People drank more in warm weather than cold, so why not buy a hedge against the usual winter downturn?
But most exciting to the financial world was Enron's entry into high-tech communications. Because of the company's marketing dominance, EnronOnline became another overnight success, handling $335 billion in commodity trades online in 2000. Enron, as usual, made its money on the spread between the bid price and the asking price. Then there was the broadband business: To Enron, trading excess capacity in large, high-speed fiber-optic networks (empty lanes on the fabled information highway) wasn't that different from trading the capacity of natural gas pipelines. So Enron created a market for what the industry calls bandwidth. Soon after, it also announced a twenty-year deal with Blockbuster to deliver movies on demand electronically to people in their homes. Enron looked like a company that couldn't lose. "Its strategy of building businesses, shedding hard assets, and trading various commodities can help it do well even in an uncertain market," BusinessWeek insisted.
There was, however, another reason Enron did so well in such a short time: the company's hard-nosed approach toward its customers. The old notion of customer service was based on the long haul-you had to nurse and coddle customers to keep them. But Enron had new markets and new ideas-customers had to come to it. Over time, the company stopping referring to its business clients as customers and began calling them "counterparties."
Skilling wanted the biggest profits on the shortest timetable: Gains were maximized by creating, owning, and then abandoning a market before it became overtaxed and overregulated. So if you wanted to launch a high-risk venture quickly-such as Zilkha Energy's new high-tech approach to drilling for oil-you got your financing from Enron because a bank would take forever to underwrite the project, if it ever would. But because Enron invented its markets and subsequently dominated them, Enron could set the terms of its deals, from the timeline to the method of accounting to whether the deal happened at all.
While many businesses used what was known in the industry as "mark-to-market accounting," for instance, Enron used it on an unprecedented scale. The company priced their deals at current market value-but it was always Enron's idea of the market value; companies that balked at their pricing didn't get deals. And while old-fashioned companies spread their profits out like annuities over a period of years, Enron took most of its profit up-front. However many millions would be made on a deal that covered several years, they went on the books in the current year. If a few analysts thought there might be something fishy about what they called "subjective accounting," investors didn't particularly care as long as the profits rolled in. As the market fluctuated and the landscape changed, the company might abandon a project that had been in the works for months because its profit margins weren't going to be high enough. "Enron is known for leaving people at the altar," says one former employee. Winning the highest possible profits for the company could even extend to Enron's attitude toward charity. When a fundraiser for the Houston READ Commission, a literacy group, called on Enron for a contribution, it was suggested that he start raising money for Enron's competing literacy charity: "Even the person who was supposed to give money away for Enron was supposed to make money for Enron," he says.
As Enron became more and more successful, the culture Skilling had created took on a dark side: The competition turned inward. As one member of the Enron family put it, "It became a company full of mercenaries." The change started at the bottom. As Enron's domination of the energy market grew, most of the recruiting frills fell away. New associates were treated much like the commodities the company traded. Global Change's Enron spies reported overhearing orders like "I need a smart person-go buy me one" or "Buy me an intelligent slave, quick." Enron had never been the kind of place where people sang to you on your birthday, but now the workaholism bordered on self-parody: A Random Acts of Kindness program lasted only a few months. It was too disruptive. People couldn't get their work done.
And, of course, Enron had a program for institutionalizing creative tension. The Performance Review Committee, which had initially been installed by Skilling in the Capital group, became known as the harshest forced ranking system in the country. Employees were rated on a scale of one to five, and those with fives were usually gone within six months. (The PRC's nickname quickly became "rank and yank.") It was a point of pride that Skilling's division replaced 15 percent of its workforce every year. As one Skilling associate put it, "Jeff viewed this like turning over the inventory in a grocery store." Skilling's approach to business-get in and get out-had become Enron's attitude toward its workers. In time, it would become many workers' attitude toward the company. Teamwork, never that valuable in a trading culture, went the way of the eyeshade and the abacus. If protocol required an Enron higher-up to come from Europe to help with a project in the Third World, he might help-or he might not, depending on whether another, potentially more lucrative project was pending elsewhere.
Everyone felt the pressure to perform on a massive scale at massive speed: "They were so goal oriented toward immediate gratification that they lost sight of the future," says one former employee. Anyone who couldn't close deals within a quarter was punished with bad PRC scores, as were the higher-ups who had backed them. Past errors and old grudges were dredged up so often as new ammunition in PRC meetings that the phrase "No old tapes" became an Enron clich?. "People went from being geniuses to idiots overnight," says one former Enron executive.
In such a hothouse, paranoia flowered. New contracts contained highly restrictive confidentiality agreements about anything pertaining to the company. E-mail was monitored. A former executive routinely carried two laptops, one for the company and one for himself. People may have been rich at Enron, but they weren't necessarily happy. One recruiter described the culture this way: "They roll you over and slit your throat and watch your eyes while you bleed to death."
BEFORE JEFF SKILLING COULD TRANSFORM ENRON from the world's leading energy company into the world's leading company, he had to make one more change: Just as he had done ten years before, Skilling had to purge the company of its remaining old order. Where Enron once prized cautious executives who dealt with tangible assets like pipelines, it now valued bold executives who dealt with intangible assets. Pipelines, power plants-they may have been Enron's pride, but Skilling wanted them gone. Expensive, long-term building projects had no place when Wall Street was devoted to quick profits and enormous returns on investment capital, and Skilling knew it. "It wasn't the time for long-term approaches," an Enron executive says of Wall Street's mood. "It was the technology era."
To rid Enron of the last vestiges of its past, Skilling had to take on Rebecca Mark, long considered his rival for the CEO's job. Mark was for many years the poster child for the Enron way: Young, attractive, aggressive-her nickname was Mark the Shark-she came from sturdy Midwestern stock but had the requisite Harvard MBA. Mark was largely responsible for the success of Enron International, the asset-heavy side of the company where she developed $20 billion worth of gas and power plants, which accounted for 40 percent of Enron's profits in 1998. For this she reaped breathtaking compensation-one Enron executive estimated $10 million-and adoring press clips, including two appearances on Fortune's list of the fifty most powerful women in corporate America.
But then Mark ran into trouble with a gas-fired power plant in Dabhol, India, one of the largest ever constructed. She had played the game the Enron way: Taking Enron into a new market, she had finagled low import taxes (20 percent instead of the usual 53) and hung in through 24 lawsuits and three changes in government. But the time and expense needed to make India and other Enron plants around the globe successful did not mesh with Enron's goals, and Skilling's impatience with Mark grew.
Forcing Mark out, however, was no easy matter. Key executives left, divisions were dismantled, but she remained. The truth was Enron didn't mind firing lower-level employees, but it hated to fire the kind of aggressive, relentless people it tended to promote. The company preferred humiliation-keeping a director in his cubicle, say, but failing to include him in the glamour deals, or kicking someone upstairs with a fancy title. (One particularly difficult executive won a few years at graduate school, gratis.) A company as smart as Enron could probably deduce too that dispatching one of the most visible businesswomen in the country would provoke a public-relations disaster. So Lay and Skilling did something classically Enronian: They gave Mark her own company. Despite Skilling's contempt for asset-heavy businesses, Enron spent more than $2 billion to buy a run-of-the-mill British water utility that could serve as Enron's entry into the emerging world of water privatization. Mark was put in charge of making Enron, yes, the world's greatest water company. Azurix, as the new business was called, looked like another sure thing: Its IPO in 1999 raised $695 million.
But Mark had to succeed on Enron's increasingly abbreviated timetable in a business fraught with political and emotional complexities. Water is not like gas or electricity-owners and governments are a lot less willing to give it up, even for lots of money. The company stumbled, layoffs commenced, and confidence evaporated. By August 2000 the stock price, which had started out at $19, had fallen to $5. Mark's resignation followed, and Azurix, much diminished, was folded into Enron. "I think it's best for Rebecca to start afresh," Lay, who had been a mentor to Mark, told the Wall Street Journal. Or as one critic put it, "They were more interested in destroying the old culture than running a business."
As 2000 drew to a close, Skilling was in total command. In December Ken Lay announced the inevitable: "The best time for the succession to occur is when the company is doing well," he told the press. "Enron is doing extremely well now." In February 2001 Jeff Skilling took over the CEO's job.
ALMOST IMMEDIATELY THE TROUBLE STARTED. Enron's domination of the electric-power market made it an instant target in the California deregulation debacle. Both PBS's Frontline and the New York Times took on Enron, portraying the company as a heartless colossus that used its influence in Washington (Lay and Enron's political action committee are the top contributors to George W. Bush) to force old people on fixed incomes to choose between buying food or electricity. Skilling and Lay appeared on camera singing belligerent anthems to the free market, while another memorable scene juxtaposed one of the company's jackallike traders against a hapless state employee in California, as both tried to buy power online. The Times reported that Lay had tried to persuade a new federal commissioner to change his views on energy deregulation. The bad press was, to say the least, ironic: Just as the media was pounding Enron for its omnipotence, Wall Street was discovering its weaknesses. By late March the stock price had slid to $50 a share from $80 in January.
Within Enron, the asset-based divisions took the rap for the decline. (The India plant continued to be enormously costly, at least in part because of constant turnover within Enron's management team.) But the California situation was more visible and therefore more damaging, despite Enron's claim that the state had never built enough power plants to service its population and never properly managed those it had. "For three months Gray Davis did a very good job of blaming us," says Mark Palmer, a vice president for corporate communications. "We were a Texas company. There was a Texan in the White House. California was a state that didn't put him in office, and his biggest contributor was a Texas energy company. Performance is going to take care of our stock price. The truth will take care of Gray Davis." (California utilities still owe Enron $500 million, another reason stockholders might be panicky.) But more problematic than the crisis itself was Skilling's all too apparent lack of contrition. Facing down his critics, he cracked a joke comparing California with the Titanic. ("At least the Titanic went down with its lights on.")
But the biggest problem was Enron's telecommunications division, which had been responsible for at least one third of its heady stock price. Investors believed that Enron could revolutionize high-speed communications, just as it had revolutionized gas and power. Enron estimated the global market for buying and selling space over fiber-optic cable would grow from $155 billion in 2001 to $383 billion by 2004-but then the tech bubble burst. So too did the much-hyped movies-on-demand deal with Blockbuster. For the first time in its confoundingly successful life, Enron had nothing new to take to market. Like the popular high school girl who suddenly packs on a few pounds, Enron suddenly looked less alluring to Wall Street.
Skilling launched a campaign to keep Enron's most important cheerleaders, the stock analysts, in the tent, but he wasn't cut out to be a supplicant. During the reporting of first quarter profits, he called an analyst who challenged Enron's financial reporting an "asshole." When the company reported hefty second quarter profits, many analysts questioned whether those profits had come from the generation of new business or from the sale of old assets. Ignoring the growing chorus critical of Enron's accounting, Skilling promised, as he always had, that innovations were just around the corner. "There wasn't any positive news," Carol Coale, of Prudential Financial, says now. "Basically, he talked me out of a downgrade."
The business press, so generous in the past, turned surly. Fortune had asked in March whether Enron was overpriced. ("Start with a pretty straightforward question: How exactly does Enron make its money?") The routine cashing in of stock options that were about to expire by key executives was portrayed in the media as a fire sale. (Skilling had sold $33 million worth, Ken Lay and Ken Rice close to four times that amount.) Then the Wall Street Journal reported on a fund run by the CFO that had been a source of strife within the company. (It was essentially risk management against Enron's possible failures.) Every negative story seemed to produce a concurrent drop in the stock price: By late August it had fallen below $40. Enron, so institutionally unforgiving, finally got a taste of its own medicine. "When Wall Street is in love with a stock, they're forgiving of something like accounting," says Carol Coale. "When a company falls out of favor, all these issues carry more weight."
This fact was not lost on people inside the company, who suddenly started experiencing an attack of conscience. Those who had looked the other way as the most powerful Enron executives dumped their wives and married their secretaries or carried on flagrant interoffice affairs now saw the error of their ways. "It just created an attitude," one executive still at Enron says. "If senior people are doing that, why are we held to a higher standard? There was a real culture of 'We're above everyone else.'"
Loyalty had never been prized at Enron, so there was no reason to expect it now. An old-fashioned, slow-moving company like Exxon could demand hardship duty in Baku with the promise of greater rewards down the road. "But," as one Houston oilman explains, "if you have to negotiate a hardship duty with someone who doesn't have loyalty and has money, then you have a corporation that's better suited for good times than bad."
As it turned out, that description applied to Jeff Skilling too. As the stock price stubbornly refused to ascend, he made no secret of his unhappiness and frustration. Then, after a trip to visit the families of three employees killed at a plant in England, he had an epiphany: Life was short; for him, Enron was over. Ever stoic, Ken Lay returned to the CEO's office, named a new president, arranged a trip to New York to calm analysts and investors, and promised a kinder, gentler Enron in the future. Trading anything and everything was out. The company, Lay says, will still innovate but "innovate much closer to our core." As for the culture: "Things like the Performance Review Committee, I think we could have applied better. By trying to categorize people into so many different categories, you ended up creating a morale problem."
That Skilling's supposedly brilliant colleagues were as shocked at the news of his departure as the rest of the business community may be testament to their lack of emotional intelligence. Despite Skilling's lengthy tenure with Enron, he'd always been contemptuous of the long haul; he'd always believed in cutting losses and moving on. But now that he was abandoning them when the company was in trouble, it was different. "Even Jeff's biggest detractors wouldn't have wanted him to walk out the door," one loyalist admits.
But on the day we meet, Skilling is looking forward, not back. "Look," he says with finality, "ninety percent of my net worth is in Enron. Were my interests aligned with the shareholders? Absolutely."
Free of falling stock prices and shareholder pressures, he is nestling himself back into the world of ideas. His eyes flash as he talks about new technologies. "The first wave never gets it right," he says. "The stand-alone dot-coms didn't work, but the technological applications will create a second wave that will change the world." Houston, he promises, will become the world's center of commodity trading, and he intends to be a part of it. In fact, he is already shopping for office space.
"This is the second wave, and Enron's got it," he says, almost breathless. "There are thousands of people running around the streets of Houston that get it."


high-tech management news???????? Published by Technologic Partners

EXECUTIVE CHANGES FOR Thursday, May 31, 2001
TOP MANAGEMENT
? Ardent Appoints Former Glaxo WellCome Exec as Pres, CEO
? Biotech Firm Enanta Names Spiros Jamas New President & CEO
? Data & Analysis Firm Polexis Names David Overskei as New CEO
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
? Noveon Adds Kumar Shah as Sr. VP of Corp. Dev.
MARKETING & SALES
? Assentive Adds ObjectStream Exec Ken Croley as Marketing VP
? MidStream Names Stuart Rosove Marketing Vice President
? Digital Media On Demand Adds Mark Overington as VP
? DSPs Provider Improv Systems Names VP of Sales
? Lumeta Names James Conniff & Michael Briggs Reg. Sales Mgrs.
? Touchpoint Adds BobDeHaven and Doug Dahlen as Sales Execs
? VirtualGiveaway Names Sharon Schanzer as Sales & Mkt. VP
OPERATIONS
? Asera Appoints Deepak Patil as President of Asera India
? OptiGlobe Appoints Ramon Quintana to Lead Mexican Operations
? Sequence Design Opens Japan Office with Chairman Yu Hirano
? Advantage Capital Partners Adds Stephen Bordes as Sr. VP
? e-business technology Names Diem Le as VP, Int'l Relations
? Howard Diamond Gets Promoted to GetPlugged.com's VP
? Metreo Adds Peter Wong as VP of Professional Services
? Entropia Opens U.K. Office, Alex Wild is Managing Director
FINANCE
? Astrea Systems Adds Orange Glo Exec Larry McVey as CFO
? Lido Capital Adds Xdrive Exec Keith Pinter as Managing Dir.
TECHNOLOGY
? Availant Adds Veridiem Exec Chanchal Samantha as CTO
? Poindexter Systems Names Steve Jacobs VP of Engineering
? SideStep Adds Jung Shin as VP of Eng. and Operations
OTHER
? eRealty.com Adds George Stephens as Director of Compliance

EXECUTIVE SEARCHES
 SR. DIRECTOR, QUANTITATIVE ANALYTICS-NEW YORK
 VP MARKETING-CUPERTINO, CA
 VP MARKETING-SEATTLE
 DIRECTOR OF UK ADVERTISING SALES-LONDON
 VICE PRESIDENT-LOS ANGELES AREA
 DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT-ITHACA, NY
 CMO/EVP MARKETING-AMSTERDAM, NL
 SENIOR VP SALES-NY OR CALIFORNIA
 CFO-SILICON VALLEY AND ELSEWHERE
 EVP SALES AND SERVICE-SEATTLE, WA
 GENERAL! PARTNER-SF OR NYC

TOP MANAGEMENT
Ardent Appoints Former Glaxo WellCome Exec as Pres, CEO
 mail? top

 RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Ardent Pharmaceuticals, which
develops therapeutics for pain management, urinary incontinence, depression,
cardioprotection, and glaucoma, said Dr. Richard S. Kent has joined the
company as president and CEO. Dr. Kent had served as senior vice president of
global medical affairs and chief medical officer for GlaxoSmithKline.
Kwen-Jen Chang, who has served as president and CEO since 1996, retains his
position as chairman and takes on the role of chief scientific officer. Dr.
Kent, who takes a seat on the board as the ninth director, was introduced to
Ardent through local industry contacts. He will focus on bringing the firm's
first product, an intravenous formulation for pain management, through
clinical trials and to market. The trials will finish in 2004. The company is
backed by more than $32 million from Bau Dah Investment, Bio World Venture
Capital, Central Investment Holding Co., China Development Industrial Bank,
Elan Pharmaceuticals, and PK Venture Capital.
http://www.ardentpharma.com

Biotech Firm Enanta Names Spiros Jamas New President & CEO
 mail? top

 CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Enanta Pharmaceuticals, a developer of
small-molecule drugs, announced the appointment of Spiros Jamas as president,
CEO and director. Prior to joining Enanta, he served as president, CEO, and
director of Repair, a biopharmaceutical company developing therapies to
repair diseased organs and tissues. Mr. Jamas replaces co-founder Peter O.
Kliem, who will continue with the company as chief operating officer,
executive vice president and board member. He joins as the seventh member of
the company's board, which includes Stella M. Sung, a partner with Oxford
Bioscience Partners; Gert Caspritz, a partner with TVM Techno Venture
Management; and William C. Mills III, a partner with Advent International.
Enanta's backers include Advent International, Alpinvest International, Bank
Vontobel, KB Lux Venture Capital, Lancet Capital, Oxford Bioscience Partners,
and TVM Techno Venture Management.
http://www.enanta.com

Data & Analysis Firm Polexis Names David Overskei as New CEO
 mail? top

 SAN DIEGO (VENTUREWIRE) -- Polexis, which creates information analysis and
data management tools and applications for commercial businesses and
government agencies, said it appointed David Overskei as its new CEO.
Previously, Mr. Overskei worked as a consultant to high-technology companies.
Mr. Overskei, who will not gain a board seat, replaces co-founder, Carlos
Persichetti, in the CEO position, but Mr. Persichetti will remain president.
Polexis was searching for a new CEO to direct its future growth and located
Mr. Overskei through a board member. Founded in 1995 the company has raised
two rounds of funding from Nextreme Ventures and Bridge-West. It is advised
by the San Diego office of Brobeck Pheleger & Harrison.
http://www.polexis.com

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Noveon Adds Kumar Shah as Sr. VP of Corp. Dev.
 mail? top

 CLEVELAND (VENTUREWIRE) -- Noveon, formerly BFGoodrich Performance
Materials, said it appointed Kumar Shah as senior vice president of corporate
development, reporting to president and CEO Steve Demetriou. Prior to joining
the company Mr. Shah was senior vice president of corporate development at
International Security Products. Noveon is the new name of the former
specialty chemicals businesses of The BFGoodrich Company. Noveon was acquired
in February 2001 for $1.4 billion by a private equity group led by AEA
Investors.
http://www.bfgoodrich.com

'Financial

MARKETING & SALES
Assentive Adds ObjectStream Exec Ken Croley as Marketing VP
 mail? top

 SAN FRANCISCO (VENTUREWIRE) -- Assentive Solutions, a provider of secure
digital intellectual property management technology to businesses, said it
named Ken Croley as vice president of marketing. Mr. Croley was formerly vice
president of sales and marketing at ObjectStream, a software vendor providing
Internet infrastructure to online businesses and service providers. Assentive
Solutions is backed by Information Technology Ventures, Intel 64 Fund, J. &
W. Seligman, Jafco Ventures, Mentor Capital Group, Science Applications
International, Spinnaker Ventures, Sun Microsystems, and TL Ventures.
http://www.assentive.com

MidStream Names Stuart Rosove Marketing Vice President
 mail? top

 BELLEVUE, Wash. (VENTUREWIRE) -- MidStream Technologies, a developer of
multiformat, narrow and broadband flexible streaming hardware, said it named
Stuart Rosove as vice president of marketing. Mr. Rosove was recently CEO of
AudioTrack Watermark Solutions and also owned consulting firm Rosove
Consulting Services. MidStream is backed by ARCH Venture Partners, Cascadia
Capital, Fluke Venture Partners, Imperial Bank, Polaris Venture Partners, and
Xilinx.
http://www.midstream.com

Digital Media On Demand Adds Mark Overington as VP
 mail? top

 BOSTON (VENTUREWIRE) -- Digital Media On Demand, a provider of secure
distribution and commerce services for digital assets, said it added Mark
Overington as vice president of sales and marketing. Mr. Overington formerly
served as vice president of marketing at Excara. Digital Media On Demand's
investors include Greylock, Intel, Pilot House Ventures, and Sage Hill
Partners.
http://www.dmod.com

'Mobile

DSPs Provider Improv Systems Names VP of Sales
 mail? top

 BEVERLY, Mass. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Improv Systems, which provides configurable
digital signal processors to consumer electronics and telecommunications
markets, said it has appointed Michael J. Calise as its new vice president of
sales. Mr. Calise, who will be responsible for all global sales and customer
applications engineering, will be based in California's Bay Area and report
directly to Cary Ussery, president and founder of Improv Systems. Mr. Calise
was most recently the vice president of worldwide sales and business
development for Palmchip. Improv has raised $25 million from Phillips
Semiconductor and individual investors, and is currently looking for
additional financing. The company has over 70 employees.
http://www.improvsys.com

Lumeta Names James Conniff & Michael Briggs Reg. Sales Mgrs.
 mail? top

 SOMERSET, N.J. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Lumeta, an enterprise network management and
security services firm, said it named James Conniff as regional sales manager
overseeing the Southeast and mid-Atlantic region. Mr. Conniff formerly worked
at ADT for 13 years. Also added as regional sales manager was Michael Briggs,
who will be responsible for the Midwest region. Mr. Briggs formerly served as
regional business director at a New Jersey-based carrier vendor and also
served as regional sales manager at Honeywell. Lumeta is backed by Draper
Fisher Jurvetson, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures, and meVC Draper
Fisher Jurvetson Fund.
http://www.lumeta.com

Touchpoint Adds BobDeHaven and Doug Dahlen as Sales Execs
 mail? top

 EMERYVILLE, Calif. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Touchpoint, a marketing services company
that enables companies to send printed communications, said it named Bob
DeHaven vice president of sales. Mr. DeHaven was formerly president of U.S.
operations of MessagingDirect, a messaging-based electronic billing and
payment company. Also added was Doug Dahlen as sales director for the Midwest
region. Mr. Dahlen was formerly area vice president for the Western U.S. at
Messaging Direct. Touchpoint is backed by Crimson Global Internet Fund,
Crimson Group, Highland Capital Partners, Roda Group, and Rukuten.
http://www.touchpoint.com

Enterprise Outlook 2001

VirtualGiveaway Names Sharon Schanzer as Sales & Mkt. VP
 mail? top

 SAN FRANCISCO (VENTUREWIRE) -- VirtualGiveaway, a developer of games,
contests, and sweepstakes with advertising or branding built into their
content, said it named Sharon Schanzer as vice president of sales and
marketing. Ms. Schanzer was formerly vice president of client services at
ProductPOP, an online point-of-purchase application service provider.
VirtualGiveaway is backed by individuals.
http://www.virtualgiveaway.com

OPERATIONS
Asera Appoints Deepak Patil as President of Asera India
 mail? top

 BELMONT, Calif. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Asera, a provider of an online business
operating system, said it named Deepak Patil as president of Asera India. Mr.
Patil will lead the company's efforts in India, which includes customer
activation and support, building an India-based engineering presence and
leading sales and marketing for the India and Asia-Pacific markets. Prior to
joining the company Mr. Patil was co-founder, president, and CEO at eVizeon
India, a firm focused on providing e-commerce IT services to global
companies. Asera's investors include  AC Ventures, Amerindo Investment
Advisors, Bowman Capital Management, BP Amoco, Capital Research Management,
Cisco Systems, Crescendo Ventures, Eastman Chemical, GE Capital Equity Group,
Integral Capital Partners, Intel, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and
others.
http://www.asera.com

OptiGlobe Appoints Ramon Quintana to Lead Mexican Operations
 mail? top

 BETHESDA, Md. (VENTUREWIRE) -- OptiGlobe, a provider of enterprise and
Internet data center services, said it named Ramon Quintana as country launch
manager for OptiGlobe-Mexico. Mr. Quintana will oversee sales, operation,
marketing, and construction for the company's facility in Mexico City. He
formerly served as vice president of operations at NCR's subsidiary, the
Teradata Solutions Group. OptiGlobe is backed by BancBoston Ventures, Banco
Santander Central Hispano,  Credit Suisse First Boston, First Union Capital
Partners, Mellon Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Norwest Equity Partners, Telecom
Partners, Racional, and Votorantim Venture Capital.
http://www.optiglobe.com

Sequence Design Opens Japan Office with Chairman Yu Hirano
 mail? top

 SANTA CLARA, Calif. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Sequence Design, a provider of timing
and power optimization for design closure in system-on-a-chip integrated
circuits, said it appointed Yu "Duke" Hirano as chairman of its newly formed
Japanese subsidiary Sequence Design KK. Mr. Hirano was most recently
president for Nihon Synopsys KK. Sequence Design is backed by Alpine
Technology Ventures, Atlas Venture, Intel, IVP, LSI Logic, Menlo Ventures,
Sigma Partners, Skywood Ventures, Sofinnova, Sumitomo, and VenGlobal Capital.
http://www.sequencedesign.com

Advantage Capital Partners Adds Stephen Bordes as Sr. VP
 mail? top

 NEW ORLEANS (VENTUREWIRE) -- Investment firm Advantage Capital Partners said
it named Stephen J. Bordes as senior vice president. Mr. Bordes will be
responsible for identifying and assessing investment opportunities,
evaluating and structuring transactions, and working with portfolio company
management teams. Mr. Bordes previously was a partner in the merger and
acquisition services group at Deloitte & Touche.
http://www.advantage-capital.com

e-business technology Names Diem Le as VP, Int'l Relations
 mail? top

 COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (VENTUREWIRE) -- e-business technology, a security
services and product development firm, said it added Diem Le as vice
president of international relations. Mr. Le will be responsible for creating
and maintaining strategic partnerships and distribution channels for the
company's software and services. Initial international expansion will focus
on the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Le most recently served as vice president and
general manager, Asia operations at MedChannel, a business-to-business
healthcare software and services firm. e-business technology is backed by
Crimson Ventures.
http://www.ebiz-tech.com

Howard Diamond Gets Promoted to GetPlugged.com's VP
 mail? top

 WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. (VENTUREWIRE) -- KnowledgeLinks, parent company to
GetPlugged.com, said it promoted Howard Diamond to vice president and general
manager of GetPlugged.com. Mr. Diamond most recently served as director of
sales and joined the company in April 1999. KnowledgeLinks is backed by
Hewlett-Packard, Mission Ventures, M Group, and Timberline Venture Partners.
http://www.getplugged.com

Metreo Adds Peter Wong as VP of Professional Services
 mail? top

 PALO ALTO, Calif. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Metreo, a provider of supplier-driven
online business technology, said it named Peter Wong as vice president of
professional services, reporting to co-founder, president and CEO Daphne
Carmeli. Mr. Wong formerly served as director of West Region Consulting
Services at J.D. Edwards. Metreo is backed by Mentor Venture Partners,
Prospect Venture Partners, and Sequoia Capital.
http://www.metreo.com

Entropia Opens U.K. Office, Alex Wild is Managing Director
 mail? top

 SAN DIEGO (VENTUREWIRE) -- Entropia, a provider of distributed computing
resources, said it appointed Alex Wild as European managing director for its
new Cambridge, England office. Mr. Wild formerly worked at companies such as
Novartis, Nestle, and Mercedes Benz. Entropia is backed by Mission Ventures,
Moore Capital Management, Pacific Life Insurance, RRE Ventures, and the San
Diego Technology Group.
http://www.entropia.com

FINANCE
Astrea Systems Adds Orange Glo Exec Larry McVey as CFO
 mail? top

 ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Astrea Systems, a provider of wireless Web
software technology and a vendor of a wireless Web services platform and
mobile commerce systems and software, said it appointed Larry McVey as chief
financial officer. Mr. McVey previously served as CFO at Orange Glo
International. Astrea is backed by individuals and plans to seek Series A
funding in the next few months.
http://www.astreasystems.com

Lido Capital Adds Xdrive Exec Keith Pinter as Managing Dir.
 mail? top

 IRVINE, Calif. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Lido Capital, a financial advisor to
communications, utilities, and emerging companies, said it appointed Keith
Pinter as managing director. Mr. Pinter most recently served as executive
vice president and general manager of business services at Xdrive
Technologies, an Internet storage infrastructure provider. Prior to Xdrive
Technologies, Mr. Pinter served as executive vice president of sales at Epoch
Internet, an Internet service provider.
http://www.lidocap.com

TECHNOLOGY
Availant Adds Veridiem Exec Chanchal Samantha as CTO
 mail? top

 CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (VENTUREWIRE) -- Availant, a provider of availability
management software and services, said it named Chanchal Samantha as chief
technology officer, responsible for product and technology strategy. Mr.
Samantha formerly served as chief technology officer at Veridiem, a marketing
performance management company. Nick Minutillo was also added as vice
president of product marketing, reporting to Mr. Samantha. Mr. Minutillo
previously served as acting CTO of Availant and joined the company in 1996.
Availant is backed by Boston Capital Ventures and DRW Venture Partners.
http://www.availant.com

Poindexter Systems Names Steve Jacobs VP of Engineering
 mail? top

 NEW YORK (VENTUREWIRE) -- Poindexter Systems, a provider of software that
enables real-time advertisement generation, said it named Steve Jacobs vice
president of engineering. Mr. Jacobs previously oversaw development of
OnTarget for Sonata, a mobile ad server. Poindexter is backed by Echelon
Ventures and Hudson Venture Partners.
http://www.poindextersystems.com

SideStep Adds Jung Shin as VP of Eng. and Operations
 mail? top

 SANTA CLARA, Calif. (VENTUREWIRE) -- SideStep, an online travel service,
said it named Jung Shin as vice president of engineering and operations,
responsible for product development activities and overseeing the company's
software engineering team. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Shin was senior
vice president and co-founder at Embark.com, an education Web site. SideStep
has raised $5.2 million from individual investors.
http://www.sidestep.com

OTHER
eRealty.com Adds George Stephens as Director of Compliance
 mail? top

 HOUSTON (VENTUREWIRE) -- eRealty.com, an online real estate brokerage, said
it named George C. Stephens as director of compliance, responsible for the
company's compliance with federal, state, and local real estate regulations.
Mr. Stephens also currently serves as secretary of the Texas Association of
Realtors and is the organization's chairman for 2002. eRealty is backed by
Milestone Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, and TL Ventures.
http://www.erealty.com

EXECUTIVE SEARCHES

Sr. Director, Quantitative Analytics - New York - Marketing Infrastructure
Services

Wheelhouse, which designs implements and manages strategic Internet marketing
systems, seeks a leader with a unique combination of solid quantitative
analytics, modeling, and business intelligence skills along with business
development skills. This position involves significant pre-sales and sales
involvement, billable client work, and participation in the ongoing
definition and development of analytic service offerings.
The candidate will be responsible for:
* Participating in the sales process to identify and articulate strategic
analytic solutions
* Determining appropriate statistical technique(s) to meet client needs
* Managing and potentially designing and programming SAS macros to expedite
modeling EDA process and accountable for ensuring quality on all projects
* Collaborating with the Service Development team to identify, prioritize,
develop and expand suite of analytic services and offerings
* Representing Wheelhouse in marketing/analytic forums
* Consulting on client and internal projects

Qualifications:
Education: Masters or MBA required; Masters or PhD in Statistics or
Econometrics strongly desired
Experience: 7-10 years of experience including extensive consulting
experience in database marketing, marketing analytics, Internet marketing
and/or e-commerce business issues. This individual should have significant
experience working with the following statistical techniques as they apply to
marketing:
* Logistic regression
* Factor analysis
* Decision Tree Modeling (i.e., CHAID, CART, C4.5, etc.)
* Cluster Analysis
* Segmentation

e-mail: HR@wheelhouse.com
company: Wheelhouse
[top]

VP Marketing - Cupertino, CA - Edge Networking

entrisphere is a startup backed by two eminent venture-capital firms, Accel
Partners and Benchmark Capital. We're building the first carrier-class,
converged 'first mile' systems that are plug compatible with service-provider
infrastructure, finally providing economic service delivery of new
high-revenue broadband services.

By integrating several network elements, the entrisphere solution
revolutionizes service provisioning and management of edge networks, yet
enables service providers to leverage their investment in operations, Class 5
switching, and IP routing. Our system is based on a state-of-the-art hardware
architecture involving high-density and high-speed design driven by
innovative software.

You are responsible for our inbound product marketing and management
functions. You are articulate, have ties in the service provider community,
and possess a basic knowledge of the technology - ideally with a data
background and an understanding of the existing public switched telephone
network. Must be comfortable giving presentations at all customer levels.
Previous experience in a venture-backed start-up is desirable.

e-mail: careers@entrisphere.com
company: entrisphere
[top]

VP Marketing - Seattle - Communications Lasers

nLight Photonics is seeking a seasoned executive with a successful record of
marketing and creating business relationships in the telecom industry, who
will drive the market penetration and sales success of nLight. He/she will be
responsible for directing all aspects of nLight's marketing and business
development activities, including product management, technical
specifications and marketing communications. This senior management position
reports to the CEO.

Primary Job Functions
Develop and implement the multiple-product marketing strategy for next
generation optical components based on nLight technology
Work closely with the VP of Engineering to refine the product marketing
strategy and to develop detailed documentation of product specifications
Perform competitive analysis, decide overall market positioning and influence
company direction accordingly
Identify strategic partners and business benefits, and propose and develop
advantageous relationships
Develop and maintain nLight's image and reputation in the marketplace,
effectively communicating and evangelizing the the 'company story' and
positioning to the industry, partners and customer groups
Build and develop a highly qualified marketing team
Negotiated pricing, NRE, and licensing deals with prospective partners

Knowledge & Skills Required
Engineering background with significant experience in marketing and product
development
Strong personal leadership skills and a proven track record of developing,
building and bringing new, sophisticated optical networking products to
market Experience and success in managing complex system engineering projects
requiring intense industry qualification
Thorough knowledge of fiber optic communication technology
Familiarity with long-haul optical transport technologies including EDFA and
Raman amplification technologies is desired
Familiarity with Telcordia qualification requirements
Thorough knowledge of potential partners and customers in the
telecommunication space

e-mail: hr@nlightphotonics.com
company: nLight Photonics
[top]

Director of UK Advertising Sales - London - Search Engine

Work for a pre-IPO organization that has consistently been regarded as the
best search engine on the web! The award-winning Google search engine is
rapidly growing in popularity around the globe. Google is available in 26
languages and more than half our traffic comes from outside the United
States. Now we want more than half of our revenue to come from outside the
United States. We need to grow our presence in the UK and are looking for an
exceptional leader to drive the establishment of our London office.

Responsibilities:
* Acquire UK clients as well as establish strong relationships with
advertising agencies. Primary method of acquisition will be client
visits/presentations.
* Prospect, qualify, negotiate and close key accounts
* Achieve revenue goals
* Build a local sales force and drive the establishment of Google's UK
presence
* Increase Google brand awareness
* Manage UK sales force and day-to-day operations

Experience/Attributes:
* A minimum of 7 years sales experience with 4 years of management background
* 2-3 years of online advertising sales
* Established network of contacts with advertisers and agencies (online and
offline)
* Strong understanding of the Internet advertising space
* Outstanding presentation and communication skills
* Entrepreneurial spirit and instinct for revenue-generating activities
* Valid UK work permit required
* Continental languages ideal

e-mail: jobs@google.com
company: Google
[top]

Vice President - Los Angeles Area - HW/SW Engineering, Microscale
Manfufacturing

We seek a highly-experienced, creative, and dynamic senior manager to assume
a key position as Vice President in charge of the hardware and software
design and development of sophisticated, high precision capital equipment for
microscale manufacturing. Candidates must have a track record in the
successful commercialization of automated capital equipment. Experience in
bringing to market equipment for semiconductor manufacturing or a related
industry is preferred. An extensive background managing large and complex
multidisciplinary projects is a strict requirement.

Duties and Responsibilities:
* Supervise and coordinate Mechanical, Electrical, and Software Engineering
departments.
* Assume responsibility for systems engineering and specification of new
products.
* Develop budgets and product plans.
* Work closely with V.P., Process and Materials Engineering to develop new
products and expand the capabilities of existing products.
* Interface with Manufacturing, QA/QC, Marketing customers.

Requirements:
* B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Physics; M.Sc.
desirable.
* 3+ years of experience as a V.P. Engineering or 6+ years of experience as
a, Project Manager, or Mechanical or Electrical Engineering department
manager
* Background in capital equipment.
* Solid track record in bringing to market successful products.
* Good working knowledge of mechanical and electrical engineering principles,
methods, and tools.
* Solid understanding of software development, including some software
development experience.
* Project management background.
* Systems engineering background.
* Demonstrated ability to manage others.
* Excellent organizational skills.
* Excellent interpersonal skills.
* Excellent oral and written communications in English.

Applicable Background:
* Semiconductor process tools or other precision, automated capital
equipment.

e-mail: box1078@venturewire.com
company: n/a
[top]

Director of Product Management - Ithaca, NY - Optical Components

BinOptics is a pioneer in next-generation optical devices based on
leading-edge semiconductor innovations. The company's proprietary technology
places it in a unique position to address the challenges facing the rapidly
growing optical components industry. Founded in 2000, BinOptics is privately
held and funded by renowned Silicon Valley venture firm Draper Fisher
Jurvetson and Stanford University. The company is currently headquartered in
scenic Ithaca, New York and is seeking a Director of Product Management who
will report to the CEO.

The Director will be responsible for working with potential customers to
understand how the company's technology can meet their requirements; leading
the evolution of the company's products by determining the product
definitions and the planning process; being the main ambassador and
evangelist of the company's technology; building and leading the team that
will develop and deploy the company's next-generation products; and providing
product direction and guidance for the engineering team.

He/She should be a dynamic and high-energy individual with strong
presentation skills; have a very strong knowledge and understanding of the
telecommunication industry, DWDM, optical components, optoelectronics, and
photonics; have 8+ years of telecommunication industry experience; have at
least 5 years experience with product management or engineering management or
product development specializing in optical networking products; have
excellent written and verbal communication skills; be able to represent the
company in business as well as technical forums; and have an MBA and an MS or
BS in Electrical Engineering. A background from an optical component
manufacturer is preferred but not required.

The job requires a significant amount of travel.

e-mail: careers@binoptics.com
company: BinOptics
[top]

CMO/EVP Marketing - Amsterdam, NL - Information Technology

THE CHALLENGE Establish Our Client, a $3 Billion global consultancy, as a
premier Global Brand that stands for a high quality, premier service and
Support global growth objectives from $3 Billion to $10 Billion.

CMO/EVP MARKETING(THE ROLE The EVP Marketing will be a member of the senior
management team and will report to the Board of Directors. The CMO/EVP
Marketing will Develop, communicate and drive the marketing strategy to
position our client as a Global brand and lead all marketing functions:
Public relations, Investor relations, Marketing plans, Brand development
strategy, Product and service development, Promotion and positioning
campaigns and Web based marketing strategies to include web site strategies,
e-news letters etc.

REQUIREMENTS: International Background: Implemented successful Marketing
Campaigns across multiple countries and regions, Multi-Lingual desired,
English Fluency required Educational background: BA/BS Required, MBA required
Experience with Marketing/Branding in a Service industry or B2B environment
highly desired

e-mail: toddg@1execstreet.com
company: 1EXECStreet
[top]

Senior VP Sales - NY or California - Dark Fiber Wholesale

Company will be deploying dense dark fiber networks in US Cities using
robotic technology to quickly deploy fiber in sewers and storm drains
quicker, more efficiently, and with less impact than current methods.

We need a proven dark fiber and bandwidth sales executive that has closed
deals with ISP, ASP, ILEC, CLEC, DLEC, wireless, large business, and
government customers.

Responsibilities: Presell fiber before build is started. Lease fiber during
construction process, and after the build is completed.Assist in ROW
acquisition with cities.Recruit and manage sales team and effort. Build and
manage local sales teams and effort. Report to CEO on all aspects of sales
and revenue responsibilities.

Qualifications: Prior experience working for a national provider of dark
fiber in metro areas. Knowledge and contacts with customer targets. Strong
proven experience on closing sales with carriers. Business and financial
educational background a plus.

e-mail: box1070@venturewire.com
company: n/a
[top]

CFO - Silicon Valley and Elsewhere - Venture-Backed Startup

Mayfield provides Venture Capital with IMPACT, creating next-generation
technology companies in communications and e-Business Software. We are
currently seeking seasoned Chief Financial Officers for our portfolio with
the following credentials:
* CFO experience in private and public technology companies
* CFO Experience in leading companies to profitability and successful
liquidity
* Style and attitude that thrives in either early or mature companies
* Strong financial and business modeling skills
* Strong leadership, management, operating skills and insights
* Deep relationships with analysts and Wall Street
* Strong financing skills and ties with technology venture community,
investment bankers, institutional and enterprise investors
* BA or MBA Degree
Current opportunities in Silicon Valley, So. California, Seattle, and
Washington, DC

e-mail: opportunities@mayfield.com
company: Mayfield
[top]

EVP Sales and Service - Seattle, WA - Online Learning

Growing K-12 teacher shortages, and difficulties in creating economic class
sizes in both urban and rural settings, create challenges in providing
students across the country with equal access to quality education in
important subject areas.  At the same time, increasing levels of funding are
available at local, state and federal levels for developing innovative
methods of using technology to enhance the delivery of education.  Virtual
Schools--offering highly interactive courses led by online instructors--are
growing rapidly across the country as a way for school systems to provide
choices to students that they otherwise wouldn't be able to offer in a
cost-effective way.  Virtual Schools are taking off across the country--18
states either operate or are building Virtual Schools.

Our Company is the leading builder and operator of virtual schools for the
K-12 education market.  We build private-label virtual schools for states,
large districts, and other institutional education partners.  We provide
technology, content, and services to allow our customers to reach students
they otherwise would not be able to serve.  We also act as an "added-value
content aggregator" for publishers, universities and others who seek to
transform their learning materials for delivery through the new Virtual
School channel.  We have built a market-leading position, with customer
agreements now covering over 30% of the nation's high schools and 4.3m
high-school students.

This individual will be a key member of the company's Executive Team,
participating in senior-level strategic activities.  This individual will
focus on creating a dynamic, effective team tasked with the following: direct
sales of our content, technology and services into the K-12 education market;
managing major account relationships and service; end-user services,
including driving end-user (student) enrollments, student services, tech
support; and development of new channels to supplement direct sales efforts.

e-mail: box1069@venturewire.com
company: n/a
[top]

General Partner - SF or NYC - Venture Capital

$280 Million global fund in formation phase with offices in the US, Europe
and Asia, focused on early stage companies within the wireless, optical and
distributed computing sectors, seeks a General Partner to reinforce the US
team. The current team includes experienced Venture Capitalists and
entrepreneurs. Candidates will have a solid and successful VC experience ) 10
years minimum ) with international experience to contribute to developing a
global fund.

The ideal candidate will be entrepreneurial and have a strong track record in
early stage investing and good technical background

e-mail: box1066@venturewire.com
company: n/a
[top]

 , 2001 Technologic Partners

	WHO'S HIRING
	Model  N of San Francisco
	By Giselle Greenwood
	Model N's chief operating officer and co-founder, Olivia Dillan, describes
the vice president of engineering position as a "dream job." Model N, which
provides Internet-based software for creating private business networks,
prides itself on its strong customer values and believes it has a stellar
engineering team.

	The next logical step is to find someone to lead that stellar team. To find
its VP of engineering, the company is using personal contacts as well as
enlisting the help of its full-time recruiter, Molly Nandiwada.

	"We're looking for someone who is very creative, an outstanding people
manager, and values our customer-first model," says Ms. more>>

	'questalent.com'

	???????? CEO HIRES
	??????ceo watch

	 LINKS
	 ?sponsor VentureWire?people
	?place a classified ad
	?refer VentureWire
	?take our survey
	?send news
	?FAQ

	 YOUR ACCOUNT
	?change e-mail
	?cancel VentureWire people
	?feedback
	?this newsletter
	? mailed to you at:
	jdasovic@ENRON.COM

	SERVICES
	 ?VentureWire index

	UPCOMING EVENTS
	?Outlook Conferences
	Venture Capital community and industry executives come together!

	'Mobile

	'Enterprise


---------------------- Forwarded by Kay Mann/Corp/Enron on 10/12/2000 04:29
PM ---------------------------

Herman Manis
10/12/2000 04:19 PM
To: Ben Jacoby/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc: Kay Mann/Corp/Enron@Enron, Lisa Bills/Corp/Enron@ENRON

Subject: ESA option agreement

Ben

see comments in the body of the document.


I am not a big Soussan fan. Zimmerman would be best.

	Bonnie White@ENRON
	10/09/2000 10:49 AM

		 To: Richard B Sanders/HOU/ECT@ECT
		 cc:
		 Subject: Vinmar

I went to the Courthouse today for the Vinmar hearing on the motion to compel
and for sanctions related to the traders tapes.  Before the start of the
hearing, we met outside the courtroom with Vinmar's lawyers.  They apparently
finally came to the conclusion that the arbitration agreement covers this
discovery dispute, and, after some discussion, they agreed to pass the
hearing.  We will work with them to select a mutually agreeable arbitrator
this week, if possible, and they can have this issue heard before the
arbitrator.  This morning they mentioned three former judges as potential
arbitrators: Ruby Sondock, Alvin Zimmerman, and Susan Soussan, although I
think their preference out of those three would be Alvin Zimmerman.  He would
also be my preference out of those choices.  They may send us other names
that they would consider using as an arbitrator, but, in the meantime, let me
know what you think about these three.  Thanks.


Attached please find the interview packet for the above-referenced person.
The interview will happen Thursday July 13, 2000.  Please print all three
documents for your hard copies.  If you have any questions, or conflicts of
schedule, please do not hesitate to contact me.


Yan,

The merged reports look great.  I believe the only orientation changes are to
"unmerge" the following six reports:

31 Keystone Receipts
15 Questar Pipeline
40 Rockies Production
22 West_2
23 West_3
25 CIG_WIC

The orientation of the individual reports should be correct.  Thanks.

Mat

PS.  Just a reminder to add the "*" by the title of calculated points.


Please inform all ERMS RUNM users in your respective groups.

Thanks,
Karima
 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Lim, Francis S.
Sent:	Friday, August 03, 2001 4:56 PM
To:	DL-TAGG ERMS User Support
Cc:	DL-TAGG ERMS
Subject:	New ERMS Application

in preparation for the upcoming Oracle 8i migration a new ERMS application
has been developed. THE OLD RUNM BLUE MENU WILL NO LONGER WORK
when the database is upgraded to 8i.

What is different:

	- Most reports can be viewed on the screen using Adobe Acrobat.
	- Most reports and forms will now run on the PC and not on capers.
	- We have removed a lot of reports and forms that are no longer being used.
	- The screens now comes up faster.
	- A new report called curveviewer has been added to facilitate curve entry checking

What is the same:

	- Your ERMS access
	- ALL top page reports
	- The Gas Daily Curve shift
	- curveview/curveload/batchload program that runs on UNIX.
	- We will still provide you the old PortCalc and report screen
	  that runs on the UNIX in case you do not like the PC version.

Attached is the documentation on how to start the new ERMS-PC application.
You will have to close all of your PC applications and re-boot your PC in order
for the ERMS-PC application to appear on your start menu.

Please inform all ERMS RUNM users.


Thank you.  I'm not getting it.  Please continue sending if you can.  Thanks
very much.  Jeff

	James D Steffes
	03/06/2001 04:42 PM

		 To: Tim Belden/HOU/ECT@ECT, Jeff Dasovich/NA/Enron@Enron
		 cc:
		 Subject: California Update 3/06/01

FYI.  This information comes from ENA Competitive Analysis.  Not sure if
you're getting this.

Jim

----- Forwarded by James D Steffes/NA/Enron on 03/06/2001 04:41 PM -----

	Kristin Walsh/ENRON@enronXgate
	03/06/2001 04:04 PM

		 To: John J Lavorato/ENRON@enronXgate, Louise Kitchen/HOU/ECT@ECT
		 cc: Richard Shapiro/NA/Enron@Enron, James D Steffes/NA/Enron@Enron, Phillip
K Allen/HOU/ECT@ECT, Mike Grigsby/HOU/ECT@ECT, Kevin M Presto/HOU/ECT@ECT,
George Hopley/HOU/ECT@ect, Mark Tawney/ENRON@enronXgate, Claudio
Ribeiro/ENRON@enronXgate, heizenrader@home.com@SMTP@enronXgate, Rob
Milnthorp/CAL/ECT@ECT, Vince J Kaminski/HOU/ECT@ECT, Britt
Whitman/ENRON@enronXgate, Scott Tholan/ENRON@enronXgate
		 Subject: California Update 3/06/01

Executive Summary
? If no comprehensive deal is reached by April 9th, chances of bankruptcy
increase due to a one day "opt-out" clause in all long-term power contracts.
? PG&E and State locked in tough negotiations, several issues on the table:
 PUC-imposed requirement forcing PG&E to ultimately be responsible for
California energy supplies
 Price of the grid; state - 2.3 times book value vs. PG&E - 4 times book value
? PG&E will not use any of the $1B secured last week to help their ailing
utility.
? Davis's announcement of long term power contract didn't include some
details:
 Of the 8,800 megawatts secured this far, only 6,000 are available this
summer
 Some of the "long term contracts" are really only for three months
 None of the contracts prevent California from buying peak demand on the spot
market
? One the same day Davis announced long term contracts, Davis also quietly
announce a 10% rate hike.
? FERC may be the wild card in approving this deal.

PG&E
Transmissions deal
One thing that is still uncertain is PG&E.  Bankruptcy may still be a likely
alternative if current negotiations to buy PG&E's share of the electric
transmission grid fail to produce a deal by April 9 (when all long-term power
contracts being negotiated have a one-day "opt-out" clause they can exercise
unilaterally if a "comprehensive solution" has not been reached by the state
and its major utilities).  According to sources close to senior PG&E
officials, PG&E made it clear that any hope for a politically acceptable deal
on the transmission lines depends on the California government's willingness
to make a major financial commitment it has been completely unwilling to make
until now.

PG&E will not make a final deal to sell its grid unless Davis agrees to
relieve it of the PUC-imposed requirement to be the "electricity buyer of
last resort."  Current state regulations make the utility companies
ultimately responsible for generating or purchasing enough electricity at all
times to supply California's energy needs.  As long as the state steps in and
makes those purchases, as it has for the past three months, the utilities are
shielded from absorbing the losses generated by paying premiums for spot
market power and selling to consumers who are shielded by low rate ceilings.
But, PG&E officials are worried 1) this summer's supply and 2) Davis's
concern over how fast he is draining the state's budget surplus.  If things
get into a crunch this summer and Davis makes a new decision that the state
will pay only for the electricity it buys through long-term contracts, then
PG&E will be left holding the bag.

Thus, as part of the negotiations over buying the electricity grid, PG&E is
demanding a "comprehensive solution" that includes not being liable for cost
differentials between the spot market purchase and what consumers are allowed
to pay.  State officials are in no mood to grant that kind of "get out of
jail free" card, so the two sides remain locked in extremely tough
negotiations that are complicated by three other factors: (1) PG&E's public
behavior and welter of announcements in the past few days that seem to
encourage suppliers to force involuntary bankruptcy; (2) State legislative
demands that the price Davis negotiate for PG&E's part of the electricity
grid be no more than 2.3 times revenues from the grid; and (3) the FERC must
"positively approve" any grid purchase by the state of California.

The principal concern on the price front is that PG&E wants to sell the
electricity grid for nearly four times the estimated book value of their
transmission, while consumer groups insist that two times book value is the
politically acceptable limit.  "We see 2.3 times book value as an absolute
upper bound. There is no way PG&E will get more than that, whatever they
think," according to the leader of one main consumer groups.  "We are going
to try to force any deals down to about 2.0 in any case." Negotiators for
Davis are also trying to 'proposition-proof' any transmission deal to protect
against a later ballot proposal.  They think there are ways to do that, but
not if the price of PG&E's part of the grid triggers a ballot initiative.
Remember, if Davis's eventual solution triggers a ballot initiative, he will
be running for re-election on the same ballot as a public initiative designed
to overturn his solution.

On the Sacramento front - no one understands PG&E's motives
The one question no one in Sacramento can figure out is what kind of game
PG&E is playing.  In a three day period PG&E made a series of announcements
that left everyone scratching their heads.
? Late Thursday, PG&E officials leaked information to California papers that
they had agreed in principle to sell their part of the electricity
transmission grid to the state, which seemed like obvious good news, but then
made it clear in discussions that the price they were asking was at least 30%
above what the state was currently offering.  While a deal can still be done,
anything like the $10 billion PG&E wants would be very hard to get through
the California legislature which needs to approve any purchase.
? Late Friday, PG&E officials announced that they had secured a $1 billion
loan for the parent company (not the electricity utility) and would use the
money to pay off bondholders, other creditors and to return $161 million to
shareholders in a new dividend payout.  Not a cent of that money was
earmarked to help the struggling electricity orphan of PG&E and that left at
least one rating agency convinced that the company was more ready to send the
utility into bankruptcy than had been previously understood.
? Over the weekend, PG&E leaked a story claiming that it was willing to pay
off its energy suppliers' debt for 15 cents on the dollar right now.  For
generators who are having to make decisions each morning about whether to
start legal actions that protect their rights in any eventual bankruptcy
action or hold off on the assumption that the politics of this process will
"make them whole" in a couple of months, that kind of trial balloon is
extremely unnerving.

Thus, in a very short time period, PG&E's corporate owners showed they could
access public credit markets with relative ease and then showed that they
were unwilling to use these funds to smooth the way toward a solution to the
energy crisis.  Davis has demanded that all of the major utilities absorb at
least a part of the $13 billion debt they have accumulated since last summer
and PG&E's fund-raising will harden and deepen those demands.  As one senior
political official told our source "just when you think the corporate
leadership of that company has insulted us as completely as possible, they
come up with something even more outrageous."

PG&E's actions also complicate the broader solution Davis is trying to
construct to solve California's problems.  State Democrats doubt they will
get Republican support for a deal, which means a vote will fall short of the
two-thirds majority necessary for immediate enactment (resulting in 90 days
for the legislation to go into effect).  Additionally, in the past 48 hours,
many Sacramento sources have reported that forcing creditors to take a less
in any debt payback is gaining substantial support with the legislators and
may be crafted into any legislation to authorize Davis to purchase the
electricity grid.

Long-term Contracts - Davis didn't tell the whole truth
Yesterday, Davis announced that he had signed "long-term" power deals for
8,800 megawatts of power, out of a total 12,000 megawatts he wanted to sign
eventually. According to the press release, Davis is now 75% of the way
toward his long-term goal and has already solved the hardest part of
California's energy crisis. This means consumers would maybe pay more than
necessary five years from now, but these contracts "guaranteed" that
consumers would pay less for the next three years.  What Davis failed to
highlight was that of the 8,800 megawatt commitment, actually only 6,000
megawatts are available this summer (when demand is expected to 45,000
megawatts); and some of these "long-term contracts" are actually only good
for three months.  None of these contracts, however, keep California from
having to buy the most expensive peak demand electricity on the spot market.

Davis Agrees on New Consumer Electricity Rate Hikes for Next Year
While the media was concern with Davis's announcement of long term contracts
for California, of less concern to the media was Davis's quietly announced a
decision to let rates rise again for electricity consumers. The state will
accept the 10% emergency surcharge levied on consumers in January as a
permanent increase as well as an additional 10% increase for consumers that
will take effect early 2002 when the old 1996 rate cut legislation expires.
That would bring the average charge to about 8 cents a kilowatt hour.

FERC
The other major danger to the transmission line deal is that the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission can block the deal simply by failing to approve
it in a positive vote. Senior California officials and legislators doubt that
FERC has jurisdiction, and believe that FERC would not dare stop a deal. But
they may be wrong. "The deal can only go through if FERC specifically signs
off on the deal. Its power over transmission deal is absolute, no matter what
anyone says," according to source close to the President. There are three
possibilities: 1) FERC could "pocket veto" it by not even putting it on
agenda for discussion; 2) the deal is put on the agenda but it gets voted
down. The Democrat on the commission, William Massey, has already said he is
opposed to it; or 3) the Commission could approve it but with condition that
Davis has to agree to bring the lines into a regional grid system.

One complicating factor in the FERC decision, however, is that its chairman
Curt Hebert, who is adamantly opposed to the transmission line sale, may not
be around long enough to have his say. "Hebert is definitely not a shoo in
for the FERC chairman position," says one Washington official. Two other
appointments to the Commission will soon be named, this official notes, and
one of them "could easily become chairman."


Rob Cass sent me the deal nos., and I have made a request to the confirm desk
to get the trade terms.  Thanks for your help.

	Sheri Thomas/ENRON@enronXgate
	04/25/2001 08:50 AM

		 To: Robert B Cass/ENRON@enronXgate, Tana Jones/HOU/ECT@ECT
		 cc: Torrey Moorer/ENRON@enronXgate, Jennifer deBoisblanc
Denny/ENRON@enronXgate
		 Subject: RE: Request Termination Agreements for 4 EnronOnline Transactions

Tana is going to need the details of these trades - deal number, volume,
price, etc.

thanks
Sheri

 -----Original Message-----
From:  Cass, Robert B.
Sent: Tuesday, April  24, 2001 6:29 PM
To: Jones, Tana
Cc: Moorer, Torrey; Denny, Jennifer; Thomas, Sheri
Subject: Request Termination Agreements for 4 EnronOnline Transactions

Hi Tana -

We need your assistance in preparing termination letters for the transactions
listed on the attached spreadsheet and described as follows:

On Friday, April 20, 2001, four transactions occurred on EnronOnline that
were in error.  One transaction was with Coral Energy Holding L.P. and three
transactions were with Morgan Stanley Capital Group, Inc.  As mutually agreed
to by both the Enron commercial team and the respective counterparties, it
was decided that each of the four transactions would not be confirmed and
should be terminated.

The exact specifics are detailed as follows:

? The transactions occurred due to an inadvertent entry in the actual
production system of EnronOnline by a Product Control Group member, Melba
Lozano.  Melba activated a product assuming that she was in the EnronOnline
test system of EnronOnline.

? The product transacted upon is normally managed by Frank Ermis.  However,
in his absence on Friday, the product was managed by Matt Lenhart.

? Steve South, trader on the West Desk, called and notified both Morgan and
Coral that the product had been posted in error.  All parties agreed that the
transactions were not reflective of the normal pricing.  As a result they
further agreed that transaction confirmations would not be necessary and that
the deals would be "killed" on all sides.  (For reference of any telephone
tapes that may need to be pulled, the conversations with the counterparties
occurred around 2:00 pm.)

? No confirmations were generated as a result of the killing of the
transactions in TAGG.

? I spoke with Mike Grigsby on Monday (April 23, 2001) and advised him that
termination letters may be required by Legal.  He responded that he had no
problem with that.

Tana, please advise if additional information is required to complete the
termination letters or if another course of action is warranted.

Thank you,

Rob Cass
x35491


i think i am going to bail on happy hour. shanna isn't feeling well.  but plan on coming by my place for the game on sunday.

-eric


This is a message to let you know that the NEWGen December 2001 release is
available on www.rdionline.com.  If you do not want to receive this message
please reply with unsubscribe as the subject line.

Happy Holidays!

The NEWGen Staff


I can prepare a draft of a Master Agreement after credit sends me a
worksheet.  I will forward your request to them and begin the process as soon
as possible.

DP


FYI

----- Forwarded by Sue Nord/NA/Enron on 01/22/2001 09:28 AM -----

	Jeremy Meier <jermeier@earthlink.net>
	01/19/2001 05:35 PM

		 To: JDasovic@enron.com
		 cc: SNord@enron.com, Donald_Lassere@enron.net
		 Subject: Interconnection Memo's

Jeff:

Per your request, please find the 2 Memo's we prepared on
interconnection agreements - the first deals with general rights and
responsibilities, including options for obtaining ICAs.  The second Memo
focuses entirely on the specifics of how ETI obtains ICAs, and the
advantages and disadvantages fo each option.

Once you have had a chance to review the Memo's, we can discuss the next
steps in more detail.  Please feel free to let us know any questions in
the meantime. Thanks.

Jeremy Meier
Blumenfeld & Cohen
San Francisco
415 394-7500

 - ICA Overview Memo final.doc
 - Memo re ICA process and requirements final.doc


Gentlemen,

Attached are GE's comments which I just received.  They are concerned that we
tried to improve the contract.  Oh well.

I hope to get this resolved today so we can wrap it up early next week.

Talk to you soon,

Kay


i didn't get them through the big e.  some punk broker.


Carole Merritt
Carolemerr@aol.com

To Mr. Ken Lay,

I'm writing to urge you to donate the millions of dollars you made from selling Enron stock before the company declared bankruptcy to funds, such as Enron Employee Transition Fund and REACH, that benefit the company's employees, who lost their retirement savings, and provide relief to low-income consumers in California, who can't afford to pay their energy bills.  Enron and you made millions out of the pocketbooks of California consumers and from the efforts of your employees.

Indeed, while you netted well over a $100 million, many of Enron's employees were financially devastated when the company declared bankruptcy and their retirement plans were wiped out.  And Enron made an astronomical profit during the California energy crisis last year.  As a result, there are thousands of consumers who are unable to pay their basic energy bills and the largest utility in the state is bankrupt.

The New York Times reported that you sold $101 million worth of Enron stock while aggressively urging the company's employees to keep buying it.  Please donate this money to the funds set up to help repair the lives of those Americans hurt by Enron's underhanded dealings.

Sincerely,

Carole Merritt


<<May 19 Church Gourmet Cajun Dinner>> Your message

  To:      cttng@pdq.net; Alicia.Goodrow@enron.com; henryg@shellus.com;
ah692217@bcm.tmc.edu; rayberyl.mack@worldnet.att.net
  Subject: May 19 Church Gourmet Cajun Dinner
  Sent:    Wed, 9 May 2001 18:31:55 -0500

was delivered to the following recipient(s):

Hutson, Anne on Wed, 9 May 2001 18:31:40 -0500

Message-ID: <OFF08CD23A.FDCC2894-ON86256A47.007E2F3A@enron.com>
From: Tana.Jones@enron.com
To: cttng@pdq.net, Alicia.Goodrow@enron.com, henryg@shellus.com,
ah692217@bcm.tmc.edu, rayberyl.mack@worldnet.att.net
Subject: May 19 Church Gourmet Cajun Dinner
Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 18:31:55 -0500
Return-Receipt-To: Tana.Jones@enron.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21)
X-MS-Embedded-Report:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"


You need to get a mountain bike.  I like riding the trails through Memorial
Park.

Nasdaq 5000 here we come
Hunter