Rod Lorimer was leading The Clorox Company’s
manufacturing operations in the mid-1970s when one night a flood
threatened a West Virginia charcoal plant and the homes of its workers.
The plant’s managers and supervisors were away on a retreat, but the workers were far along in a company-wide experiment in self-directed teams. Getting these particular employees on the same page had not been easy, Lorimer recalls. They were like the feuding Hatfields and McCoys, he says, and they didn’t associate outside the plant. But in the workplace they learned to cooperate.
That night as the floodwaters rose, the workers divided up to protect the plant and their homes. They were able to save both.
For Lorimer it was a lesson in how people respond when leaders believe in them and share responsibility. The experience also pointed to the reality of faith in the workplace. “God is there,” Lorimer says.
That perspective defined his management style with Procter & Gamble and later with Shaklee Corporation and The Clorox Company, where he retired in 1992. A fundamental belief in others has also marked his leadership of Vesper Society’s board of directors, where for four years as chair of the board Lorimer has emphasized that good governance is about people trusting each other so implicitly that they are willing to let others make decisions for them.
“That to me is how a board can really be effective,” Lorimer says.
He joined the board in 1992 through the encouragement of Otto Bremer, a former Vesper Society associate and professor at Berkeley’s Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. In the late 1980s, Bremer invited Lorimer to discuss business ethics with students preparing for ministry. Lorimer jumped at the opportunity and became a guest lecturer for several years.
“I was trying to legitimize the notion that there are Christians in this world [of business], and they too need to be ministered to,” he says.
Lorimer learned that Vesper Society shared his passion, so he sat in on a board meeting. However, the organization was “really confusing to me at this time,” Lorimer recalls. It had a wide range of projects and three boards. “There was certainly no way to describe Vesper in 25 words or less,” he says.
At first, Lorimer declined the invitation to serve. But when the Society reorganized and simplified its governance structure, he agreed to give it a shot. The Society spoke to his faith commitment, and he was intrigued by the quality of the board, made up of people like himself who combined their passion for service with professional expertise.
Lorimer has spent his life around such people. His grandfather, two uncles and three great-uncles were Lutheran pastors. One of those uncles became a theologian. His father taught accounting and economics at Lutheran-related Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, prior to being named CFO of a Minneapolis corporation.
Lorimer was the first in his family not to attend Augustana. He earned two bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering and business administration from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Following graduation in 1960, he served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and then worked for Continental Oil Company before joining Procter & Gamble.
After retiring in 1992, Lorimer and his wife, Sally, moved from Oakland to the town of Albion, located on California’s rugged North Coast. Here they continue to share their gifts.
Rod and Sally are active in the Mendocino Presbyterian Church and Mendocino Art Center. In addition, Rod serves on the boards of the Mendocino Christian Camp, Albion-Little River Fire District, and the Mendocino Land Trust. He is also the shareholders’ representative on the board of the award-winning North Coast Brewing Co.
At the end of 2008, Lorimer will complete his term as chair of Vesper Society’s board. Looking back, he is proud of the Society’s innovative projects, his mentoring relationship with President Mary Baich, and the selection of new directors to match the needs of the board and the Society’s programs.
He is particularly impressed at how the board has professionalized its work by engaging directors in meaningful committee work—then trusting their wisdom and decisions. Lorimer says directors “embrace each other and respect each other.” And he notes how they don’t hurry away after meetings. That, he says, is a sign of how much they “respect and appreciate each other’s gifts.”
October 2008