Lockheed Martin & EEStor: An Enduring Love

As Tuesday Feb 1, 2011, Lockheed Martin maintains that there have been "no changes" in it's EEStor agreement.  "Our rights agreement is still in effect," Craig Van Bebber wrote in an email to me today.

To find out why Lockheed would maintain such a long term relationship with EEStor Inc and get virtually nothing in return, I decided to go under cover once again to see if perhaps a nugget of truth could be located among the abyss of misinformation about EEStor that exists on the Internet and around the world.

What I learned may surprise you:  while most business relationships are predicated on a quid pro quo basis,  the Lockheed-EEStor hookup is based purely on love.  It started when a mutual friend introduced them at a social event and soon blossomed into a 3 division review resulting in an inability to conclude EEStor's technology couldn't work (or if it doesn't, at least Lockheed couldn't find a reason why it couldn't).   This paved the way for love to take root and bring both parties a rarely experienced profoundly intense LOVE.

According to Lockheed Martin strongman & CEO, Bob Stevens, it is not uncommon for the two companies to exchange poems penned by each company's board of directors.   I was able to obtain an unauthorized copy of such an exchange recently. I will quote sufficiently to allow you a guess at the author:

To me, you are like love taffy

I can't wait to hold you but once I do

I can never let go

until I wash with industrial soap

which is itself rather nice

About the only time the relationship went rocky was when both parties were separated due to family vacations and the dreadful thought that perhaps their beloved was wooed by someone else inevitably crept in.

"I'm not saying A123 Systems and GE are attractive mates.  But the thought of Lockheed running to their arms almost drove me mad with jealously, " stated a senior executive at EEStor too embarrassingly smitten to admit his or her name in conjunction with this flowery topic.   When I checked with Lockheed,  a key spokesperson within Missiles and Fire Control assured me "when in love, the mind can wander off a cliff on occasion which only adds to the excitement and fire in a real romance. "

But is this an enduring relationship? As one senior Lockheed executive explained recently,  "Listen. Let me explain something and you draw whatever conclusions you wish to draw.   What we have together is not the typical booster rocket event leading to an almost immediate crash. We've already endured real pain together and it only brought us closer.  It's not what our minds tell us that counts, it is what our souls identify as our meaning. Do you understand?"  This last sentence was accompanied by an almost frightening facial depiction of earnestness.

So this Valentine's day, when you ponder your particular romance status, keep in mind that personal relationships aren't the only option when it comes to experiencing love: sometimes you can find this in the commercial world as well.  The mechanics can be awkward and may require a whole new set of social conventions, but some companies are making it work.