The Feds are silent, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle. This time the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assholes claim Gibson violated an India law covering wood exports. WTF??? We enforce other country’s laws??? This raid was pure U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service theft. Juszkiewicz claims the shut down of the factories cost Gibson $1 million in lost production on top of whatever was seized.
Juszkiewicz and Berryman bought the failing Michagan company in 1986 for $5 million. It had sales that year of $5 million. Over the years the company has expanded its product lines by purchasing other companies. For example: Gibson owns Baldwin. Current sales are near $500 million and half of those sales are exports. Obama and his Marxist buddies must be pissed over this Capitalist success.
There is something else that is very fishy too. Last year Gibson was rated by Glassdoor.com as the #1 worst employer in the nation. ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/21/worst-companies-to-work-f_n_397565.html?&slideshow#comments ) This is BS. No CEO in his right mind would want to piss off the experienced artisan instrument makers the company needs. Auto Zone was #4. I’m a Auto Zone customer and I’m certain the very helpful employees here are not unhappy. In addition, Juszkiewicz has raved about the help and cooperation he got from employees after the Nashville plant was flooded last year.
In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in the case “United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms.” Juszkiewicz says the wood is worth a million dollars. There has been NO civil or criminal case filed by the Justice Dept.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service picked a fight with the wrong guy. He won’t roll over and play dead... He enrolled at the General Motors Institute in Flint, MI, a five year co-op engineering college. Sponsored by GM’s Delco division, he gained experience in a variety of different jobs at Delco’s 6,000-employee electronic components plant in Rochester. Putting his musical skills to work, he worked his way through school playing guitar - a Gibson, of course - in various rock bands playing for parties and weddings.
After graduating with honors, he worked at Delco Products for two years as product manager while studying for an MBA in night school at the University of Rochester. He completed his MBA at Harvard University on a General Motors Fellowship.
Juszkiewicz then joined the New York firm of Neiderhoffer, Cross and Zeckhauser, Inc., a pioneer in the area of middle-market deals, where he rose to the position of executive vice president of mergers and acquisitions. He left the firm in 1981 and, with two former Harvard classmates (David Berryman and Gary Zebrowski), acquired Phi Technologies of Oklahoma City. Within one month he turned the struggling technology firm into a highly profitable company.
Yeah, a lot of times those best places/worst places to live/work/raise children/retire, etc. are a bunch of BS. You read the criteria and it's all stuff only libs would value, while for conservatives they're somewhere between neutral and repugnant. That's fine, they're entitled to compile and publish whatever lists they want, but they should title them "10 Best (and Worst) Places for Liberals to Live" or whatever.