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Later that week, Ravi ushered me into the laboratory and introduced me to Jeff Teller
and John Mason. John was a slender, balding, energetic man in his early 40s. He had
previously worked for Ravi at Wonder Oil. He had retained close personal ties with Ravi and had been recruited by Ravi to work for Gamma. His loyalty to Ravi and his know-it- all
attitude was to become a major obstacle for me.

Jeff was a young, nice-looking man, a recent college graduate, and as I was to learn in
time, one of the most immature people I had ever met. He was the type of person who
would laugh if he saw someone run over by a truck. Jeff was instructed to assist me in
learning the laboratory test procedures for evaluating foundry binder systems. He
demonstrated the correct technique for making “dog bones” specimens for testing and he
instructed me in the use of the testing equipment. Watching Jeff do the testing and
evaluation of different binder products, showed me that there were major scientific
procedural problems in practice in the lab.

Ravi then instructed me to practice the testing techniques by evaluating the Gamma Supplies “Rapid Set” system which was the object of the Better Supplies' lawsuit. It did not take me
long to learn that the Gamma Oil “Rapid Set” system was significantly inferior to the
Better Supplies “Fast Set” system. My results were in direct conflict with data John Mason had generated which showed the two systems to be competitive. At first, I attributed the
difference to my poor beginners technique, but repeated efforts produced the same results.
When I asked Jeff to see his data, I found Jeff's positive results were a product of an active
imagination and a poor interpretation of data. I began to understand why he had resisted so
vehemently to show me his data. When I confronted Jeff with the conflicting data results,
he rationalized the discrepancy as a result of batch to batch variation in the products
components. This new revelation lead me to inquire into the source of the phenolic resin
component of the Gamma Supplies system.

Ravi informed me that Tenneland Corporation manufactured some of Gamma Supply
products because Gamma did not have adequate facilities to manufacture the phenolic resin
portion of the “Rapid Set” binder system. I was to fly to Summerfield, Ohio with John Mason and to observe the manufacture on the phenolic component at the Tenneland
plant. Ravi and John went on to explain that there was a problem with “Rapid Set”, and
the problem appeared to be related to the phenolic resin component. According to them, at
times “Rapid Set” did not work at all compared to the Better Supplies “Fast Set, but sometimes
the “Rapid Set” worked well. The difference in performance depended upon which
Tenneland manufactured lot of phenolic resin was used. A cursory visual inspection
of the phenolic lots from Tenneland quickly verified that the lots were not consistent
and there was a great deal of product variation.

Most of the time, I saw very little of Ravi because he was busy writing a patent
application based on the Gamma Supplies “Rapid Set” formulation. Later when I read the
application, I was amazed to see the magnitude of the numbers reported in the application.
Apparently John's active imagination numbers were being used in the application.
Enhancing data data is a common practice in research laboratories in large corporations
where there is plenty of places to hide and other people to blame when the product
ultimately fails in the market place. John had apparently learned this lesson well at Wonder Oil and had continued this practice at Gamma Supplies. And now his inflated numbers were being
used in the patent application.

In reflection, I was inundated with information and surprises during my first two weeks
at Gamma. This was to become a pattern while I was there and it had a well defined purpose
as I was to find out about a year later.