LEADERSHIP, IMAGE, PERCEPTION, SECURITY
Jerry Gorde, the thirty-two-year-old president of Virginia Textiles, Inc., in Richmond, runs a $6-million company that grew at a compound annual rate of 94 percent between 1979 and 1984. His hands-on style includes delivering everyone’s mail in the morning and pitching in to help load trucks. He shares his working office, down in the warehouse next to the soda machine, with four other people and two dogs. Though he prefers that style, there came a time when he knew he would have to alter it a bit. He had an official “president’s office” fixed up in a former storage closet next to the second-floor conference room, complete with a polished mahogany desk, walnut paneling, rich brown carpeting, and recessed overhead lighting. It is a practical solution to an aggravating little problem. Too many times while he was working on the loading platform, one of his well- meaning sales people would rush up with a client eager to meet the president.…
To view this resource, log in or sign up for a subscription plan
