There are about two billion florescent light fixtures in the United States and most of them were manufactured before energy efficiency was a concern. By retrofitting the fixture with a shiny reflector, an efficient ballast and lamps, the efficiency could be increased dramatically. So much so that the energy savings could pay for the retrofit in as little as two years. This is a compelling sales proposition to be made to the commercial building owners of the nation, and Alcoa, which manufactures metal for shiny reflectors, was anxious to make it.

From 1988 until 1993 I was the brand and marketing communications manager for EverBrite lighting sheet. I wrote communication strategies and produced videos. I could cite the Alcoa brand standards by chapter and verse.

Alcoa was/is a big company that does big things well. Make the metal that will carry a man to the moon? We're on it, Mr. President! Design a beverage container that will migrate the entire industry away from steel and glass containers? No problem, and Alcoa even threw in a crying Indian to remind people to pick up their trash.

Success in the retrofit lighting market was going to take an army of small, efficient operators. Street-smart sales people and nimble manufacturing were key and Alcoa didn't know how to create those. Alcoa plucked middle management, career people from their safe haven, told 'em they were going to be CEOs and VPs of their own division and responsible for their own profit and loss. I came into a litany of branding and marketing horror stories:

• As freshly-minted CEOs and VPs, they bought houses in Westchester County, where they could be insulated from their urban sales prospects and employees.

• They named a subsidiary company MagnaLight, thinking the flashlight people wouldn't care.

• They fired non-producing sales people after one year, but the sales cycle was 18 months. Building owners operate on annual budgets, they heard the pitch, bought into it and put it in the next year's budget. The freshly terminated salespeople naturally hired on at an Alcoa competitor, just in time to pick up that fresh budget.

• With a market opportunity of two billion lighting fixtures needing retrofits and a clear need to to take the gospel of retrofitting to the skeptical building owners of America, Alcoa and 3M chose to get in a pissing war about whose product was shinier or more durable. The CEOs of both companies had to tell their children to knock it off, while their sales prospects' attention was drawn elsewhere.

For five years, I worked hard for the product and for Alcoa. Every word drafted was subject to visions and revisions. It seemed I traveled a lot, planning sales meetings and writing installation case histories. I'm glad the traveling part of my career was then and not now.

Eventually a new product manager came in and, in the time honored-tradition, I was canned. She took the product's entire annual promotional budget and spent it on a truly spectacular trade show display. While the Javitt's Center crew was hoisting it into place, it fell, one big pile of tin scrap.

Arconic continues to supply the world's lighting OEM's with shiny aluminum sheet. In a world of LEDs and diminishing need for public space, that future doesn't look bright.