Chapter 16 - EVERWOOD WITHOUT ROBERT
Everwood survived.
Barely at first.
Northlake approved a revised $39 million facility instead of $58 million.
No descendant-trust collateral.
Independent board oversight.
Related-party contracts re-bid.
Tighter covenants.
Grace Nolan became permanent CEO.
She cut costs.
Closed one unprofitable specialty line.
Sold a warehouse.
Sixty-three employees lost jobs through restructuring.
They had done nothing wrong.
One worker confronted me at a public meeting.
“Your family got lawyers. We got layoffs.”
I wanted to explain that Robert caused the problem.
It would not restore his paycheck.
“I’m sorry.”
“You still have shares.”
“Yes.”
“So you’re fine.”
Financially?
Mostly.
That inequality mattered.
Everwood created severance and retraining funds.
Not enough to make everyone whole.
No justice story gets to pretend innocent people never absorb shock.
The company later stabilized.
Employee ownership increased from twelve to twenty-five percent over seven years.
Family control declined.
Good.
Everwood stopped using children in family marketing entirely.
Not because Josephine asked.
Because Grace said:
May you like
“A furniture company should sell furniture, not bloodlines.”
I liked her.
