Applause
The conference hall at the New York Press Center was packed to the rafters.
Hundreds of reporters filled even the narrow aisles, cameras trained on the dais.
At the back of the hall, large broadcast cameras for the live feed blinked red on their tripods.
……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click!
Amid the relentless barrage of flashes, I stood on the stage in a neatly tailored suit.
In the front row sat reporters from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other major outlets, while behind them reporters from business magazines and television networks held up recorders and notepads, waiting in tense silence.
Victor, my chief secretary, checked the microphone, and Caroline, my deputy secretary, arranged my notes and set them on the lectern.
On the giant screen behind me, two logos appeared side by side.
Lee Energy and Black Bog.
And between them, a single arrow.
The direction of that arrow made the meaning plain.
This was the moment we announced to all of Wall Street that Black Bog was coming under Lee Energy.
“Today, Lee Energy is officially announcing the acquisition of Black Bog.”
As my voice rang through the hall, the sound of camera shutters grew even more intense across the room.
……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click! ……Click!
Pens moved all at once across paper.
I went on.
“Black Bog has committed countless wrongs in the past. Environmental pollution. Destruction of local communities. And internal corruption.”
I paused for a moment and looked straight ahead, gauging the reaction in the room.
A few reporters were nodding. Others exchanged glances and whispered to one another.
“I’m standing here to make sure those wrongs are paid for.”
The screen changed.
Beneath the heading Environmental Restoration Fund Plan, specific figures were listed.
Phase one environmental restoration budget: 120 million dollars. Community compensation fund: 30 million dollars. Ecosystem restoration project: 75 million dollars.
The room stirred.
“225 million dollars?”
“Lee Energy is covering that directly?”
“They’re taking on the cleanup too, after buying Black Bog?”
“Just how much capital does that new company have, in this market?”
The murmuring spread through the reporters like a wave.
I stepped forward and continued.
“Lee Energy will directly bear 225 million dollars of the total 1.5 billion dollar environmental restoration fund. The rest is the burden that Black Diamond, the parent company responsible for this disaster, should properly carry. Our first objective is to restore every area Black Bog polluted. We will clean contaminated soil, revive damaged ecosystems, and provide fair compensation to the local residents who were harmed. Lee Energy will take responsibility for everything Black Bog did wrong.”
A reporter from the Wall Street Journal in the front row shot his hand into the air.
“Mr. Lee! If you’re investing that much into environmental restoration, what happens to profitability? Is this a level shareholders can accept?”
“A good question.”
I turned toward him.
“But first, let me ask you this. What happened to Black Bog when all it cared about was profitability?”
“……”
“It destroyed the environment and ignored the community while chasing only short-term gains. The result is the company standing here today. Bankruptcy looming, executives in prison, and billions of dollars in fines.”
I let my voice harden.
“I’m going a different way. Restore the environment. Coexist with the community. Pursue sustainable growth. And this is not merely a charity project.”
All eyes in the room fixed on me.
“Across the United States, there are more than 1,300 Superfund sites designated by the Environmental Protection Agency.”
Superfund.
It was the list of the worst contaminated sites designated by the EPA under the federal law enacted in 1980.
Abandoned mines, shuttered factories, illegal dumping grounds, places so badly polluted that ordinary cleanup methods simply could not handle them.
When the party responsible had gone bankrupt or run off and there was no one left to bill, the federal government stepped in and funded the cleanup directly.
The name “Superfund” came from the massive trust fund created by levying special taxes on oil, chemical, and heavy industry companies to pay for that cleanup.
A case in point was Love Canal in New York State in 1978.
It was a catastrophe in which toxic waste secretly buried for decades by a chemical company seeped into the groundwater, cancer rates soared among residents, and deformed births became alarmingly common.
After that, contaminated sites across the country came to light one after another, and the Superfund list only kept growing year by year.
I moved on to the next slide on the screen.
Red dots crowded the map of the United States. Each dot was labeled with an estimated cleanup cost.
“The average cleanup cost per site runs between 25 million and 50 million dollars. But there’s a problem. There aren’t nearly enough firms with the capacity to do the work. Nationwide, there are only twelve remediation companies holding top-tier EPA certification. Half of them are already booked solid for the next ten years and can’t accept new contracts.”
The focus of the cameras shifted elsewhere.
I watched that movement carefully and continued explaining.
“Black Bog is one of those twelve. No, in terms of technical capability alone, it’s in the top three. Before former CEO Vanderbilt dismissed remediation as ‘a waste of money,’ this company practically monopolized the major cleanup projects in Texas and Louisiana.”
Pens began moving even faster among the reporters.
“I’m going to revive that division. Let me break down the method step by step.”
At my gesture, Caroline brought up a chart of the revenue model.
“The first stage is government bidding. Every year, the EPA puts Superfund cleanup projects out for public tender. Last year’s total winning bid value was 1.2 billion dollars. With Black Bog’s technical capability and track record, we can realistically win 15 percent of that. That’s 180 million dollars a year.”
The reporters nodded and began writing down the numbers.
“The second stage is private contracts. Oil companies, chemical companies, manufacturers, businesses with contaminated sites of their own are lining up. If they clean it themselves, they stay under direct regulatory scrutiny. If they hire an outside specialist, they can spread the liability around. That market alone is worth 800 million dollars a year.”
“So what’s the total projected revenue?”
One reporter raised a hand.
I answered at once.
“Conservatively, 300 million dollars a year. Operating margins in remediation typically run between 25 and 35 percent. With Black Bog’s technical capability, we’d be closer to the high end. Net profit of nearly 100 million dollars a year is possible.”
That was the sort of number that could bring a smile to shareholders’ faces.
The room buzzed again.
“And the third stage is……”
I lowered my voice slightly.
“Using the data and expertise accumulated while carrying out those cleanup projects. Those are assets in themselves. Soil composition analysis data, efficiency metrics by remediation method, groundwater flow patterns by region. Information like that becomes a decisive edge when pricing other projects.”
Now it was time for the conclusion.
“Restore the environment and make a profit. Clean up waste and make money. That is the future I see for Black Bog.”
Reporters all over the hall were nodding.
Some were writing nonstop. Camera operators zoomed in on my face.
“And now, here in this room, I’ll announce the new CEO who will lead the new Black Bog.”
This was the most important moment of the entire press conference.
The hall tightened into silence.
“The new CEO will be Ethan Locke, the man who courageously exposed the company’s corruption.”
At that instant, the entire hall went still.
Hands that had been moving over notepads froze all at once.
The reporters looked at one another and exchanged glances.
“……They made the whistleblower the CEO?”
“Ethan Locke? Wasn’t he the guy Vanderbilt pushed out?”
“He was the former VP of Strategy, wasn’t he……”
“He was completely blacklisted after the exposure. How is this even possible?”
A reporter from the New York Times business desk raised her hand.
She asked in a clear voice, “Mr. Lee, may I ask one question? You’re saying you’ve appointed the very person who exposed executive corruption as the CEO of that same company. From a corporate governance standpoint, I have several concerns.”
“Go ahead.”
“Did you consider the risk of internal backlash? Installing a whistleblower in management could create distrust among existing employees. If the atmosphere turns into one where no one knows who will report whom next, morale could drop and key personnel could leave. And what about shareholders? Black Bog’s stock collapsed because of Mr. Locke’s whistleblowing. I wonder how investors will react to appointing the very person behind that exposure as CEO.”
The Washington Post reporter beside her took the question and followed it up.
“And one more point. Did you review the litigation risk? The former executives indicted because of Mr. Locke’s testimony may retaliate with suits alleging defamation or wrongful termination.”
I raised a hand to organize their questions.
“Valid concerns. I’ll answer them one by one.”
The hall quieted again.
“First question. The issue was organizational loyalty, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Black Bog’s corruption started at the top. Lawrence Vanderbilt and his people privatized the company and exploited the employees. What Ethan Locke exposed was their crime, not the company itself. On the contrary, the middle managers and field staff who were sacrificed by that corrupt leadership support Mr. Locke.”
The reporter who had asked first nodded.
I continued.
“Now for the second question. Shareholder backlash is important too. But what caused Black Bog’s stock to collapse was not the whistleblowing. It was Vanderbilt’s corruption itself. If Mr. Locke had not exposed it, the misconduct would have remained hidden far longer, and the eventual crash would have been even worse. We have to look at the core of the issue.”
The reporters reacted the same way to that answer as well.
As they nodded in agreement, I answered the final question.
“And as for litigation risk, there’s no need to worry. Lawrence Vanderbilt is already in custody, and his people are being indicted one after another. They don’t have the freedom to launch retaliatory suits. Even if they did, we have a first-rate legal team.”
No one had any further objections.
I gave the conclusion.
“Finally, there’s one thing I need to say above all else.”
“……”
“Trust takes ten years to build and a single day to destroy. Black Bog has already lost the trust of everyone. For this company to stand up again, the person at the top has to be someone who was willing to stake his life on trust.”
I extended my hand.
From stage right, a man walked out.
Ethan Locke.
His silver hair, slicked back, caught the lights.
Hundreds of eyes turned to him at once.
With every step he took up the stairs to the podium, flashes burst around him.
“Mr. Locke! How did you feel when you became a whistleblower?”
“What went through your mind when you were offered the CEO position?”
“Any words about former Chairman Vanderbilt?”
Questions came at him in a flood.
Ethan stood at the microphone and looked across the room once before speaking.
“I worked at Black Bog for more than ten years.”
Then he began his press conference.
“I believed the future of the energy industry lay in developing new oil fields. That was why I repeatedly proposed offshore drilling development on the East Coast. But management refused to listen.”
The reporters stopped writing and looked at him.
“They were obsessed with short-term profits. To cut costs, they left aging equipment in service. To avoid environmental regulations, they bribed public officials. I watched all of it. And eventually, the moment came when I could no longer keep my eyes closed.”
Silence fell for a moment.
Ethan’s voice carried force and anger.
“When three workers died at the Texas drilling site, management tried to blame the accident on worker negligence. They pushed hush-money settlements on the families and sent golf gifts to the OSHA investigators. That was when I made my decision. Whether this company went under or I was thrown out, the truth had to come out.”
“……”
“I wasn’t foolish enough not to know what being labeled a whistleblower would do to my career. I could have been blacklisted from the industry and never found work again.”
“……”
“But I learned that whenever someone tells the truth, there is always someone willing to reach out a hand. Chairman Lee reached out that hand to me.”
“……”
“I wasn’t brave or clever enough to stop the corruption at the very moment it began, but…… I wasn’t corrupt or stupid enough to refuse the hand Chairman Lee held out at the end. That’s all.”
Ethan let go of the microphone.
Then.
……Clap!
Someone started applauding.
The applause spread slowly, unevenly at first, then rolled across the entire hall like a rising tide.
……Clap! ……Clap! ……Clap! ……Clap! ……Clap! ……Clap! ……Clap! ……Clap!
Ethan bowed deeply to the audience.
Wall Street would interpret that greeting in more ways than one.
How they understood Ethan’s intent would probably be clear only when tomorrow’s paper hit the front page, but…….
Clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapclap!
Seeing that thunderous applause now, it felt as though there was no need to wait until tomorrow at all.
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