Word: moltenly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Knight was persistent. Two years later, according to internal Molten documents, Knight began working on ways to court Molten's largest potential customer in Mexico--the state-owned oil company, Pemex. To prove it could do the work, Molten set out to perform a "feasibility" plan. And to engage Mexico's top environmental officials, it asked U.S. Ambassador Jim Jones, an old Gore ally in Congress, to hold a luncheon at his Mexico City residence. One corporate E-mail to Knight thanked him for "helping us" with Jones and a U.S. agency that granted Molten $280,000 to help finance...
...Molten, which is betting big money on an experimental process that is supposed to neutralize toxic wastes in a bath of red-hot iron, hired Knight just as he came off his stint as talent scout for the new Administration. Right away the company had big plans for him to help it pull the right levers with the government, according to an internal Molten memo. But Knight's role was larger than that of the traditional lobbyist, more like that of a corporate impresario. When the company needed credibility to build early capital, Knight arranged for Grum...
This served to enrich Knight even further. His consulting agreement with Molten was highly unusual and gave him more than the typical incentive to make his pitch. Along with a $7,000 monthly fee, Knight was given options to buy at least 40,000 shares of Molten, firm documents show. In an April 1996 letter awarding Knight more stock options as he was leaving to run the Clinton-Gore re-election bid, company president William Haney showed just how valuable he thought Knight would be to the company: "Our objective is to keep you...with us right up until...
Knight did develop a taste for foreign policy while on Molten's payroll. With the signing of NAFTA and its environmental sidebars in 1993, the firm saw a big market in Mexico for its toxic waste-eating machine. It also saw a big marketing opportunity in the Vice President's visit to Mexico in December of that year. Two days before the trip, Knight wrote Gore's counsel Jack Quinn suggesting that Gore put in a good word for the company with President Carlos Salinas regarding a cleanup job that was the "type of project where U.S. technology can promote...
Knight moved next to the Commerce Department, where he escorted Molten officials for a briefing by trade officials on Mexican environmental-cleanup opportunities the same year. In July 1996, Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor called Pemex's director general to plug the company and its bid for toxic-waste work in Mexico. Pemex has indicated a strong interest in the project but has yet to announce a decision...