Henry Larsen, the director of engineering, called Gary into his office.
Henry Larsen : “Gary, I just heard that Space Technology will be putting out an RFP for Orion Shield by the end of this month with a thirty-day response time. I've been waiting a long time for this to come along so I can experiment with some ideas of my own.

This is going to be my baby all the way, and I want you to head up the proposal team. It has to be an engineer. I'll make sure that you get a good proposal manager. If we start working now, we can get close to two months of research in. That'll give us a month's edge on everyone else”.
**Gary was pleased to be involved in such an effort. He had no trouble getting functional support for the R&D effort necessary to put together a technical proposal. All of the functional managers continually remarked to Gary "This must be a biggy. The director of engineering has thrown all of his support behind you."
On December 2, the RFP was received. Gary identified one trouble area. The technical specifications stated that all components must be able to operate normally and successfully through a temperature range of -65 degrees F to 145 degrees F .
Current testing indicated the Scientific Engineering Corporation design would not function above 130 degrees F. An intensive R&D effort was conducted over the next three weeks. Everywhere Gary looked, it appeared that the entire organization was working on his technical proposal.
Gary and Henry Larsen met a week before the final proposal was due to develop a company position concerning the inability of the preliminary design material to be operated above 130 F. Gary was concerned. Every approach he tried indicated that the original design wouldn't work. He didn't think the specification requirements could be met without a change in materials .
**Gary wanted to tell the customer the truth, let the