Related story: Brown & Sharpe sold

By BOB WYSS
Journal Staff Writer

      Ever since I joined the Journal's financial news staff more than three years ago, one of Financial Editor John Kostrzewa's big concerns has been the need to be ready for the big story. In our case, that means a big sale, especially with an old-line company such as Fleet, AT Cross, or Brown & Sharpe.
      More than two years ago, we became nervous enough about Brown & Sharpe that I stumbled into volunteering to follow them. I did a Sunday story, visited the plant, and developed an understanding of the company.
      After we ran our stories on Nov. 18 about the sale, I had many, many people in the newsroom ask me how we ever wrote all of those stories. Did we write them on deadline or did we know something?
      Well, both.
      The main story and a sidebar by reporter Paul Davis were written on deadline. We had found out only on the morning of Nov. 17 that the buyer was Hexagon A.B. and the details of the $180-million purchase.
      But we also did know something. In July, the company announced it was exploring options, including a sale. It was at that point that John and I agreed we needed to get ready for that sale. With the company esstentially at death's door, I started working on what amounted to an advance obituary on a corporation.
      Brown & Sharpe is a company with a rich history, and that is what I wanted to mine. I found an old company history, brochures, and tons of stories from our computer database, which goes back to 1982. More importantly, I went down into the storage basement of the Journal and found a wad of envelopes with yellowing paper news clips, which went back decades.
      I love going through the crumbling old clippings. It is about as close to feeling history as you are going to get. Yes, it is very tedious. You cannot believe the trivial information that often passed for news. But every once in a while, I would find a nugget worth the search.
      I also talked to Al Klyberg, of the Rhode Island Historical Society, who was invaluable. I considered talking to company officials, but I decided against it, because it felt like interviewing the deceased before they expired about how they felt about their imminent demise.
      Brian Jones, a reporter and colleague, read the draft of the history story and made some suggestions.
      I felt as though I really knew the company on the morning of Nov. 17 and that helped in the writing of the main deadline story. More than anything else, that knowledge gave me the ability to write with authority. This had been a company important to the history of Rhode Island manufacturing and the labor movement, and I was going to tell you why.
      This information was especially important in the lead. But I never really did get the point across as eloquently as I had hoped. I wrote many, many versions of the lead and eventually concluded that a rather simple lead reporting that a piece of Rhode Island history had been sold overseas was the best I was going to get.
      But the second graf was stronger, concentrating on how important Brown & Sharpe had once been.
      I felt the entire package the next day, which included the centerpiece on page one with two deadline stories and then the cover of the business section with the history, the chronology, and the historical photos, was very powerful.
      Credit John for making the key decisions, page designer Joanne Ciccarello, and even copy editor Brian Beaulieu -- who was working on the Sunday paper and who pitched in with a label headline, ``The Final Measure.''
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