March 22, 20—

Mr. Allen E. Tufts
President
Tufts Technical Services
660 Kirkville Road
East Syracuse, New York 13057

Dear Allen:

It was good to talk with you last week, but I am disappointed to see that our discussions are proceeding so slowly.

From my side, I am eager to get to work and, as you might suspect, I have been pursuing a very active search. This search has developed several possibilities, but I keep thinking about your situation, which is such a good fit with what I do best, and I am reluctant to see it possibly closed off by a coincidence of timing rather than actual decision.

It is my understanding that you are looking for someone who could provide strong assistance with day-to-day management responsibilities so that you could concentrate more on the longer-term issues. You feel you have assembled a strong group of people, whose only deficiency is a lack of broad management experience. This will come with time, but you need someone to help you right now.

If this understanding is correct, I think I can provide you some real help. As you know, my management
experience has been quite broad and varied, and at InTek I had a similar situation. Most of the department heads there were also in their early 30s and quite bright. It was a situation in which I served as both leader and teacher. I very much enjoyed doing this and along the way, we also built a very strong and aggressive organization.

Please give these comments some serious thought, and I will phone you in early April when you are back from your trip.

Best regards,

Michael D. Burns