Sublime

December 12, 198S,

An eminently practical man, the courtly Perkins knew well what Hill had earlier ascertained: that even profitable regional roads like the “Q” must either expand to the sea, in order to secure the transcontinental through-rates they needed to compete, or be absorbed by other such systems. He knew that it would be wiser for the Burlington to consolid

United States especially, policy-makersexplicitly discouraged them from cultivating Western-type desires.

He had spent considerable time and effort on the development of a deep-water port at Miami, but had encountered government resistance and had given up on that project.

When he wanted to size up a man quickly he loaded him with power. If the man took the least advantage of his new position he got some kind of warning, not from Henry Ford but from the least expected quarter. How he accepted the warning was what Henry Ford was watching. If he went to Ford to see if the warning was really coming from him, he would be

Jim Grosfeld, who was on Copart’s board, gave me some sage advice: “Willis, Wall Street doesn’t care about ups and downs. They hate that. What they like is consistency. If you just make that earnings line just move up a little bit every quarter, every year, you’ll get paid a really good high multiple because then they can figure your company out.”

Common stockholders have a pre-emptive right to maintain their percentage of ownership.

I also knew Copart was mine again. At the time, I had three million shares, making me the biggest shareholder, with 40 percent ownership of the company. I could do one of two things—use my stock as currency to buy other companies or go back to Wall Street to raise more money. Now that Copart was public, raising more money would be easy.

Harrison, though, knew human nature and was toughest to work for when the railroad ran well. The boss worried that his people would get complacent. “When things were bad, it’s when he was most supportive,” Creel said.