Blown for Good - Marc Morgan Headley [142]
A few years earlier, another Gold staff member and I had designed and come up with a Hi-Def Film projection system that was computer based. We had an HD playback computer that was custom programmed and employed a revolutionary playback system, which was not only completely hard disk based, but was completely secure. Dave had a huge concern about the security of the media, and any system designed would have to be completely secure so that even if stolen, its built-in security features would render the media useless.
Well, we had designed this film system and it was completely computer based and driven by many different methods of remote control.
After designing the HD film rooms, they were being installed in all of the new orgs. I had overseen the installation in over 20 film rooms and each one was a huge hit.
Shortly thereafter, Russ Bellin had completely bombed on designing a personal film system called a “Reg System.” The Reg (Registrar) system was something that an org Reg could sit someone in front of and play a film that would sell them on the service that the person was supposed to do next. It took all the guesswork out of selling new services and as long as there was a film for the service, the person could watch it and then pay for the service.
Russ Bellin had hired the same outside professional designers that had designed the new Mark VIII Ultra E-Meter. The designs were then made into styrofoam prototypes and built into wood cabinets. They looked like Wal-Mart A/V system cabinets with a bizarre style to them. They sucked. Dave Miscavige rejected them out of hand.
I worked out a design that looked like a candy red sports car that had been turned into a huge TV with speakers. It was completely self-contained and looked cool. It sounded awesome. It was a 3.1 speaker system, years ahead of its time. It was also computer based.
The third and final system that would cement my place in Golden Era A/V systems history would be the Bookstore system. Dave Miscavige had laid out what he wanted in a system for the bookstores in every org.
Russ Bellin attempted to produce this and came up short. His designs were still reminiscent of his ugly Reg system designs. That gave me an idea.
I designed and built a Bookstore system that looked like it was from the same family of systems as my Reg System. This new bookstore system would also be computer based.
So, as with all of the other systems that I had designed and gotten approved by Dave Miscavige, I would make all the systems computer based. This would greatly simplify the entire process of designing and building systems and give us a stable base as well as an upgrade path for everything that was being installed. All of the menus and screens to control the systems would be Flash based, and since I had someone who could do all of that programming, we were set.
I could do all programming and designs in house and the only things that I would need to purchase for my proposal would be the computers, screens, speakers and fabrication materials.
After a few days, I had not heard back on my finance proposal. I went to CMO Int and saw Marc Yager. Marc was still a declared SP. He was being addressed by Dave Miscavige in dispatches as INT BASE SP MARC YAGER or just INT BASE SPs if the dispatch was to more than a few of the SPs.
Well, at this point not only was he an SP, but he was the single point of approval on all International Finance items. He was the one approving all the weekly Financial Planning disbursements and if you wanted any money for anything, he had to approve it.
Well, when I went and met with him, he said that in order for him to approve any finances for systems, I would have to have approval on them by COB! I could tell he was trying to screw me over. He was there when Dave