Head of Tohd Power & Light lauded for use of unconventional tactics, including hostage taking, to achieve returns for shareholders
The President and CEO of Tohd Power and Light took advantage of a recent town hall meeting to prove that the public will be harmed if his company is fined for overcharging customers from 1999 to 2010.
Tohd Power & Light, headquartered fifteen miles south of San Francisco in the town of New Moldova, California, was found by the state utilities commission to have overcharged customers to the tune of $4.2 billion over the twelve years.
An investigation concluded that the company “willfully and purposefully” hid overcharges in what are called reversible banked incrementals, allowing monies to be obscured via layers of misleading documentation and multiple levels of internal and external transactions, escaping notice even during rigorous auditing.
At a town hall meeting on the basketball court of New Moldova’s Baja Frappuccino High School, the company’s CEO and president, Danvorious Tohd, said none of this is the fault of his company, which has been owned by the Tohd family since its founding in 1908. “We made mistakes. That’s it. We shouldn’t be punished for honest mistakes.”
He told the crowd of 300, who sat in risers usually used for basketball games, that he knows who is culpable: “The people to blame are the regulators. They’re supposed to be watching us, yet for twelve years we mistakenly overcharged people? This is unconscionable behavior on their part.”
When asked by an audience member if he didn’t have it backwards, if in fact it is his company that is to blame, Tohd started a slide show with graphs and charts showing that his company can’t continue to provide electricity and remain profitable if all people want to do is point fingers and engage in name-calling.
That same audience member, a woman wearing jeans and a cream blouse, then told Tohd he hadn’t answered her question.
Tohd told her she was mistaken, and began talking about how he, as a job creator, had to be free to run his company as he sees fit. “Do you want a bunch of bureaucrats deciding your future? They want to drive up your family’s monthly expenses by fining us so that we’ll have to charge you more for your power in order to remain profitable. This is a family company! This is my children’s future! And it’s your children’s future, too, because if they can do it to us, they can do it to you!”
At this, over half the audience stood up and cheered.
After the noise died down, one audience member, a man in an orange and black t-shirt that read “Let Tim Smoke,” stood up and asked, “Do you really care about jobs? Isn’t this all really about making money for your rich friends?”
Tohd became visibly agitated at this question and paced to a place directly below the basketball hoop and back before responding. “I hear this all the time, and it’s garbage,” he growled into the mic. “How many of you here are Tohd P&L employees?” A bloc of hands went up, amounting to about 200 people. The company had bused in friendly listeners, as it does for all of Tohd’s talks.
“You see?” continued Tohd. “That’s hundreds of jobs right there because of my company. Now, I’m going to show you what regulation does to that.” He turned to the Tohd P&L employees. “None of you can leave the room. I’m going to fire one of you every fifteen minutes until the state agrees to void this finding against us. There, now you can’t deny that regulation is killing jobs. And who is it hurting? Not me. Them, the little people.”
The room was silent for the first time since early in the talk. People seemed not to know what to make of Tohd’s threat. Tohd himself only stood at the lectern, tapping his fingers against its edge and occasionally looking at his watch.
After a few minutes, a small group of people walked out of the stands and headed toward the exit. “No,” Tohd called out to them. “I want you to stay. I want you to see this lesson in capitalism. We need more people who understand the virtue of free enterprise.” Tohd P&L had provided security for the event, and their CEO Protection Squad blocked the doors.
Word of the unusual hostage situation at Frappuccino High spread fast. Many in the audience called loved ones and/or the police. Others posted to Twitter and Facebook accounts, and word of what was happening went global.
The mood in the gym became tense. People whispered, afraid to draw Tohd’s attention. A few children cried and were urgently hushed by their parents.
“Alright,” Tohd announced. “Time’s up. You’re fired.” He pointed to a balding man with spectacles. A security guard waded into the crowd and escorted the terminated employee to the exit. “I’m sorry, but if everyone voted Republican, this wouldn’t happen.”
Soon after, those inside the gym heard sirens and wailing tires. From outdoors, a voice on a bullhorn broke in: “Everyone remain calm! Come out with your hands up!”
Tohd sent a vice president out to negotiate. Those witnessing events from inside the gym could not make out much of what transpired then. Tohd was soon on a cellphone, talking and pacing. At one point he shook his head and looked at his watch. He glanced up from his call to point out the next firing victim, then went back to negotiations as a young woman in business attire and high heels was walked to the door and pushed out.
Shortly before the time for the next firing, Tohd again approached the lectern.
“I have good news, everyone!” He raised a fist and smiled. “We’ve reached a settlement. All findings against Tohd P&L have been dropped. We will make a donation of a quarter million dollars to local job programs, while admitting no wrongdoing. I think you can all agree this is an outcome that benefits everyone, especially the community.” He walked off and was seen getting into a waiting limo.
The New Moldova police department’s point person in the negotiation later explained how the tense situation in the Frappuccino gym was defused. “If he had a gun or something, we’d have to shoot him,” said Captain Eric Fernandez. “But we saw he had that nice suit on, and we realized this was more like a business negotiation. So we put the governor on the line.”
By 9:15 p.m., Tohd was in the KRRR TV studio to talk live with Fox Business and MSNBC about how he had saved his company, and possibly the local economy, from overzealous regulators. The cover of the Wall Street Journal the next morning featured a drawing of a smiling Tohd, under the headline: “Tohd’s innovative negotiation hailed as a lesson for every boss.” He is currently in talks with a publisher and a ghost writer to produce a book of leadership lessons drawing on his experience, tentatively titled Resolved: How to Take the Bull by the Horns by not Taking Any More Bull from the Government.
On Tuesday, the board of Tohd P&L called a special meeting to award Danvorious Tohd a $15 million performance bonus.
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