The operational relationship that followed the contract signing was mine.
Diane Keller came in the year after we signed the account. She replaced Garrett when he retired, and her style was different from his: less warmth, more precision. Not cold — precise. When she called about a problem she described it in specifics. When she had a requirement she stated it once and expected it to be remembered. When something was handled correctly she sent a brief acknowledgment. Three sentences, business email sign-off, no small talk.
I adapted to her style within a month. Some people would have found her manner abrasive. I found it clarifying. You always knew where you stood with Diane. You knew what she needed and whether you’d provided it. The ambiguity that exhausted me in other client relationships was largely absent from ours because she communicated without ambiguity.
In the fifth year of the Alder account — my fifteenth year at the company — Diane called me before calling Victor. This was the first time she had done this, and I noted it as a data point about the relationship.
She said she had a capacity expansion in mind and wanted to understand our network before bringing it formally to my father.
We spent forty minutes mapping their expansion against our carrier relationships. I told her where we were strong and where we’d need to develop. She said she would give us ninety days to build the capacity before she’d need to see it. I said I would have a preliminary network plan in two weeks.