Blown for Good - Marc Morgan Headley [143]
He made it very clear, unless I had a dispatch from COB specifically stating that I was to get funding from Int Finance, that I would not get any, period. He told me that my only other option was to get the money from Gold FP. That was the equivalent of saying, “you are never going to get the money, ever.” Gold FP could barely pay for food for the crew much less computers and crap for upcoming projects. I was screwed.
This was typical of the Int Base. People trying to stop others from getting something done just to spite them. I was doing well. I was getting stuff done, I was producing high quality systems that were being installed all over the world. I had produced over 700 HD film systems, over 350 Reg systems, totaling millions of dollars, and now Marc Yager was going to shut me down on a $30,000 finance proposal for prototypes? Not a chance.
It took me a few hours to figure out a plan. I had no idea that this plan would ultimately change my life forever.
There was a huge warehouse in LA, called the Bandini warehouse, that was a shared storage and production facility used by both Golden Era and Bridge Publications. So much room had been taken up by the new E-Meters being stored there, that a lot of older stuff was being cleared out and thrown away.
I had received a list a few weeks earlier of all of the old systems items that were located in the warehouse, with information on what was being thrown out and what was being sold.
One of the items on the list being thrown out was several pallets of 20-year-old 16 mm projectors still in the original boxes. There were stacks and stacks of these being chucked into dumpsters. I wrote down to the warehouse manager and asked him to have them sent up to me at Gold and that I would get rid of them at my end.
I looked on Ebay and found there were several of these projectors being sold for over $500. And the ones being sold were old used ones that had been damaged or had parts missing. The ones I had were still in the original packaging and had been unopened for the most part.
I had an Ebay account and a Paypal account that I used on occasion for personal purchases.
I did a new proposal on how I was going to get the money I needed. I was going to sell off all of the crap that had been accumulated in systems stocks over the last 20 years. I estimated that I could sell off $50,000 worth of old equipment and unneeded items that would never be used on the new AV systems, and that were otherwise already being thrown away.
My division head, all Gold Division heads, top executives and finance staff had approved the proposal. In order to sell any org equipment, one had to have the authorization from all of these people. So, there it was, I had the approval in writing. I started selling the items right away.
Within the first week, I had made $3,000. I had pallets arriving daily from the warehouse in LA. I was selling the items faster than I could get them up to the Int Base. After a few weeks, I had made $15,000. All the while, I was still getting my systems designed, programmed and was assembling my overall proposal to Dave Miscavige.
After a few weeks, one of COB’s Office staff came down to see me and we decided that with what I had put together, I could submit my proposal. The systems that I had actually built, I could have ready to demonstrate, and any others I could just show pictures of how the system would look and what items it would consist of. This worked for me.
In a few days I completed the submission and sent it up. As with all submissions to COB, they had to go through about five other people before they could be presented to him. The routing on my submission was the following:
TO: COB RTC
via: CO CST
via: CO CMO INT
via: CO GOLD
via: MFG SEC GOLD
FROM: A/V SYSTEMS DIRECTOR GOLD
The submission went back and forth with the Manufacturing Sec several times to fix points that might be interpreted