Remembering A.K. Lanterman
Ten formative years with the legendary Holland America Line boss
January 27, 2020
by Joseph Slattery
It was 1992, the year of hurricane Andrew. I was in Miami, working at the North American headquarters of an international cruise line. We had a consultant, ex-Holland America Line, who sensing my curiosity liked to regale in industry lore. One day in a context long forgotten, the name Kirk Lanterman came up. Lanterman had been HAL’s president since the company moved from New York to Seattle in 1983. He was already a legend. “A tyrant, a tough SOB -- genius with numbers,” said my friend with sudden animation. “Makes every decision in the company.” I mentally filed that intel and we went to get a sandwich.
A few months later by happenstance I noticed a job ad in Travel Weekly. “Holland America Line seeking Product Manager – Caribbean Cruises.” I tore it out. Truth be told, it wasn’t Holland America that interested me, it was Seattle, one of my bucket-list places to live. I love the outdoors. So I sent the resume, some phone calls ensued, a couple interviews and I’m hired. Walked into my boss’s office, resignation letter in hand. He stared at the sheet while I read his body language. An exhale, a gentle shake of the head, as if he were imagining something tragic. “Holland America, eh? Lanterman. A real taskmaster. He’ll work you like you’ve never been worked before. Be forewarned.” A month later my twenty-seventh floor office overlooking Biscayne Bay was vacant while I sulked in a windowless cell at HAL headquarters. The sun hadn’t shone in weeks.
Both men were right. Kirk Lanterman seemed to have absolute power. He had saved the company from bankruptcy in the ‘80’s and helped sell it to Carnival Corporation. He made it bulletproof, and then gave it scale. In my first 15 years, thirteen newbuilds were launched. Once a year he gathered employees for a “state of the business” presentation, a drab and rehearsed affair organized around one keystone slide – a bar chart of HAL’s operating income. The leftmost bar was Kirk’s predecessor’s final year. Each year the bars got more crowded because the starting point never changed. The slope, upward of course, would rate double black diamond.
I was never close to Kirk, always a couple of notches down on the org chart, but near enough to feel the heat. He was far and away the smartest, toughest, most intimidating person I’ve ever known. He lived by the “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it” dictum that meant everything had to be quantified. He was legendary for waking up at 2:00 or 3:00 AM every day, and for leaving the office each night with a rolling Samsonite full of reports. I remember a few times in the early years, there’d be a big meeting on Monday and I’d get a phone call over the weekend. “There’s an error in the deck! The number on page 78 doesn’t foot with the one on page 245!” The call came not from Kirk, of course, but from my boss, trying to head off an ambush and the ensuing public flagellation. I’d call my subordinates and we’d head to the office, or show up in the pre-dawn of Monday morning to fix the glitch.
Kirk’s management style was simple. Fear and greed. Relentless threats, generous bonuses. Most of the workday he held court in the boardroom, grilling subordinates, reviewing every detail of the business. Enormous loose-leaf binders of tabulated numbers were passed around. One colleague aptly described these sessions as “Long hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.” If called on and unprepared, you’d rather have been hit by a bus. He was merciless. One year we had a grueling, invective-laced inventory meeting at 7:00 AM on Christmas Eve. “TGIF, only two more days in the work-week” was overheard on many a Friday morning.
Such terror persisted for years, but the theory “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” held true, at-least-for-me.
As I write this, there is on my bookshelf a title called “The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.” Had he seen it, Kirk’s reaction would surely have been hilarious. In ten years, he said the words “good job” to me exactly once. That was the day I brought a Costco-sized bag of M&Ms to the weekly inventory meeting. He came close a few other times. In one meeting I made an unusually lucid remark which caused this reaction:
“Joe, I like the way you think. Why, you and I, we make a formidable team.” At that point, dopamine and serotonin raced through my brain like Tatar horsemen galloping across the steppes. He paused to let it saturate, then added: “Why, even without you we’re formidable.”
Another time, in 2002, I had just returned from New York and a grueling, eight-hour deposition by Federal Trade Commission lawyers related to Carnival Corporation’s acquisition of P&O Princess. Kirk had already read the transcript. “I liked your testimony” he said. Then, realizing the hole he has stepped into, added: “Well, most of it….”
Kirk’s style and reputation were carefully crafted indeed. His real persona, behind the curtain, was different. In twenty years as President/CEO, he never laid off an employee. Tales of his generosity persisted -- how he had personally and stealthily helped many employees in distress. He was especially supportive of the Indonesian and Filipino crew members aboard the Holland America ships. When he and his wife Janet sailed, they chartered boats and coaches for crew shore excursions and personally picked up the tab. They donated millions to good causes worldwide, often privately and unpublicized.
Kirk passed away in November 2019 at the age of 87. I still think of him often, and always will. As a source of pain and anxiety he had only one rival -- my ex-wife. I’m not a religious man, but for years I prayed for his retirement (which came at age 73). To my regret I had no contact with him in the dozen years before his death. The older and wiser me would have thanked him. He all but forced me to succeed. I never got an MBA. No Ivy League, no Stanford. I did better: The A.K. Lanterman School of Management. The Navy Seal training of the business world. Tuition: blood, sweat and tears.