Word: gow
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...pungent fruits progress from yellow to orange to red and are edible at all stages; it comes, naturally, from Holland. There is also an improved version of the so-called yard-long bean, a.k.a. Orient Express or asparagus bean because of its asparaginous flavor. From China come bitter melon, gow choy, a garlicky chive, bok choy cabbage, and an aromatic celery, heung kuhn -all valuable for good wokmanship. A Japanese melon called Honey Drip is described by its originators as "intolerably delicious." Vegetable growers, generally a conservative lot, have been slow to pick up on an unusual variety called vegetable...
...then converted into chicken feed that is recycled into the next generation of broilers, who become unwitting cannibals. This super-streamlined operation, which uses everything from the chicken but the cluck, is run by Stratford of Texas Inc., a company less than four years old. Chief Executive Officer Robert Gow formed it in order to apply the computerized principles of industrial engineering to the task of pleasing a nation of hungry consumers...
...Gow is a lanky, talkative New Englander who resigned as president of a successful offshore-oil-drilling business because he thought that organized agriculture is the new frontier of business. "The day when agriculture is called upon to save the dollar is already here," he says. "Just as Japan may be able to make barbed wire, nails and transistors more cheaply than we can, the U.S. can produce broilers and beef more cheaply and ship them all over the world." Thus far, Stratford's three basic operational areas are cattle, chickens and potted plants, and Gow organizes each division...
...last year profits were $3,400,000. The company's revenues rose from $27.8 million in 1969 to $78.8 million in 1972. The year 1971, however, was bad: though sales rose to $60.3 million, from $37.5 million in 1970, the company showed a loss of $4,000,000. Gow explains that although only a small fraction of Stratford's income stems from oil, a blowout in one of its natural gas wells cost the company $6,000,000. The company's stock sells these days at about $7 per share, eight times earnings, which is roughly...
...Gow himself owns 69,000 shares (out of 3,600,000 outstanding), with options on 46,000 and a call on 37,000 more. His salary is $80,000 a year, a sizable drop from the $125,000 he made in the oil-drilling business. "It's not a Texas fortune-making story," he says. "In terms of the great Texas rich, I'm not there at all." But he has no regrets about his switch into agriculture, despite the temporary skid in income. "I thought it would be more fun," says Gow, "and eventually more profitable...