Fall of the House of McGraw-Hill
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A Company and its People

The greatness of a company or country is determined by the quality of people it attracts. I always told my eldest son, Beau, that if he always remembered who he was, where he came from, and who helped him get there, he need not ever worry about his future or his soul. McGraw-Hill, like many companies during the greatest expansion of the US monetary base in history, forgot all three of the above. McGraw-Hill, during the reign of the recently deceased Harold W. McGraw Jr. and even in the decade that followed his mandatory retirement in 1988 at age 70, still had a soul.

The turn of the millennium was the age of reckless global corporate hedonism and McGraw-Hill was no exception. The corporation's precarious position in coming world financial collapse has been sealed by the aforementioned diversification away from a publishing company and into a Financial Service information peddler. McGraw-Hill publishing division was not immune to the hedonism. It lost it's soul because it picked people who were willing to sell their souls for money and prestige.
 
I will not describe other authors or corporate executives or publishers, they will all come to light in the next few years as they find themselves on the street corners selling pencils with another character I know named Sticky. I will elaborate on one prime example, one that exemplifies the reason for the Fall of the House of McGraw-Hill, Dr Julia R Burdge, the author of her very own Chemistry 1st Edition.

Laying the Foundations

As detailed in my website My Life with Dr Julia R Burdge, Julia was one of the many persons with a lost soul that, in the end, will be the bane of McGraw-Hill. When I first met her at Iowa State University, she was a failing undergraduate who had such abysmal grades throughout four years of attendance that the University gave her an expulsion notice. Julia had a brilliant mind and astonishing wit, but few today look deep enough into a person before passing judgment, and Julia would always tell me in later years that I was the only one who saw it.

She finished her last failing semester at Iowa State and after we married I moved her down to Florida to study in the University of South Florida, with which I was familiar, and after six months of working to get in-state tuition and a virtual kick in the ass by me she was on her way again with a fresh start. What came out many years later, after much suffering by both of us, is she is like her father, and other members of her family, in that she suffers from clinical depression, one of the main reasons for her dismal past performance. With the move from the frozen tundra of the Midwest to sunny Florida she blossomed at university with a 4.0 GPA all the way through to her masters degree.

Enter Prentice Hall

With my continued support we moved to Moscow, Idaho, where she got her PhD. in Chemistry. The cold dismal weather of northern Idaho, once again, preyed on her clinical depression, and without medication or even knowledge of the condition, we suffered. I supported her in every way while raising our three children so she was free to reach her potential. Her position as a professor at the University of Akron, Ohio, and director of General Chemistry was the start of her notoriety and contact with the publishing world.
 
During her seven-year tenure process, Prentice Hall Publishing, a division of Pearson, courted her to become co-author on their best-selling Chemistry book in the history of publishing. John Chalice was the editor of the book, and a closet gay man in a very exclusive circle. Julia did stellar work in the two chapters she was assigned to review and eventually partook in a significant chapter re-write that the aging Ted Brown had befouled in order to meet the edition publishing date. She did all of this while unwittingly suffering from clinical depression. During those years in the dismal cold north, I kept her on her feet and prevented her from committing suicide during the darkest times while simultaneously raising our three children. 
The newest Prentice Hall edition was released on time and Julia was called the hero by the other authors, but within a matter of three months something went terribly wrong. John Chalice and Julia had become close working together on this edition and over many cocktails in places like the French Quarter of New Orleans, Chalice, a known gay man, discovered there was something more to Dr. Burdge PhD. than what she claimed to be or she actual spoke in one of her drunken bouts. About three months after the publishing of the new edition, Dr. Julia Burdge suddenly became blacklisted by the very people who hailed her as their hero! What happened? As she used to say, “the publishing world is a big boys' club,” and she was right.
 
My personality as a “barbarian,” a rough type of character, had until that time – especially with the three children added – dispelled any suspicion as to Dr. Burdge's personal behavior outside the home. Chalice knew that she was either gay, bi-sexual or something still yet undefined and even though he was a closet gay, to have a co-author on Prentice Hall's best selling text book in history in a “big boys club” was not going to work. She was exiled from the book cover instantly with no public reason, the other authors avoided even talking to her, and she was blacklisted by the very people that just months before hailed her a hero and a savior. I could not understand the change of fortune, and when I brought up the subject to Julia the infamous deer-in-the-head-lights look would come over her, and there was only silence.
 
After Dr Burdge was booted from Prentice Hall's best book, McGraw-Hill saw a chance to pick her up as an ex-insider that was given free legal sign-off from Prentice Hall, which should have been suspicious for the McGraw-Hill officers, but this was the age of greed and signs were ignored. McGraw-Hill quickly scooped her up as a co-author in a new 1st edition chemistry book with Chang, their then best selling textbook author in chemistry. The theory was the Chang name would get the new co-authored book on it's feet and into multiple editions and then, at some later date, the Chang name would be dropped.
 
For only two experiences, in the 25 years of our marriage, had I seen actual hatred and revenge in Dr. Burdge's eyes of such magnitude it sent a chill up my spine. The first was the mention or recollection of her boyfriend of four years in college, Wesley Grimes, who frequently cheated on her. The second, the mysterious booting from the Prentice Hall book. The drive to write and overtake the very book from which she was booted by employing her own book through McGraw-Hill was unnerving! When she spoke of her exile, icy malice oozed from every pore of her soul. She would even say to me that the reason she wants this McGraw-Hill book to succeed is to drive Prentice Hall's book from it's pedestal and supplant it with hers. She was driven for not only for the money it would bring her but also for vengeance. I have seen revenge in people's eyes and actions but nothing like what I saw in hers. The old saying, “hell ain't got no furry like a woman's scorn,” held true in this case. She pushed the envelope of writing and deadlines, and as always I was there to back her and take care of everything to free her from other responsibilities.

McGraw-Hill kept shoveling the coal onto the fire to sustain the rage in her eyes regardless of the inevitable cost to her or the family. McGraw-Hill became a clone of Pearson, the very opponent they pursue. Did McGraw-Hill know the true nature of Dr. Burdge from the start, when the book deal was signed? I cannot say. Did McGraw-Hill eventually discover her nature? Of that, I have no doubt that it did. McGraw-Hill had long since sold it's soul to the corruption of the corporate world so pervasive in these final years before the crash of the century. The company was once considered family-oriented, but the characters running Stanard & Poors and the new authors and publishers – people willing to do whatever necessary to make big money for the company and regardless of whom they betray – have dispelled that image.

As I tried to warn Dr Burdge in 2006, before leaving the USA for Europe with our two sons, there was an economic storm approaching that would devastate McGraw-Hill and her chance for the 1st Edition book to survive. I told her this in a long discussion with her, not to degrade her but out of concern for the direction in which she was advancing. I still loved her even though I was deemed useless by her yesterday's patriot. I was concerned for her future welfare and mental sanity. I told her specifically that McGraw-Hill was a good company, but was off course and there was going to be a price to pay for crimes committed in the eminent crash of the economy; some day in the future when the company stock price hits bottom at a one dollar or less per share I would step in and buy many, but until that time arrives the company was doomed to fall to it's knees.

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