Enron Ascending

Chapter 3Foundations

Effective February 11, 1986, Ken Lay was elected chairman of HNG/InterNorth, joining his titles of president and CEO. The Fortune 100 company was solidly his, although corporate raider Irwin Jacobs was still in the picture. In April, stockholders approved a new name, Enron Corporation (Enron Corp, with no period, for marketing purposes); a month later, Houston was declared company headquarters.

Six months before, McKinsey’s Jeff Skilling had laid out the reasons to replace Omaha with Houston. The InterNorth-dominated board unanimously rejected the move, but with the handwriting on the wall, some of InterNorth’s operating divisions were migrating south. Still, Omaha was home for cogeneration developer Northern Natural Resources Company, wholly owned Northern Natural Gas Pipeline (NNGP), and the joint ventures Northern Border Pipeline and Trailblazer Pipeline.¹

In May 1986, J. M. “Mick” Seidl was promoted to president and chief operating officer, giving Enron a formal one and two executive. Lay, who put a premium on credentials and brainpower, was pleased with the Harvard PhD and former Stanford professor. The affable Seidl was a close personal friend as well—and always would be.

A New Home

Some much-needed celebration came in July when employees moved from the aging 28-story Houston Natural Gas Building on Travis Street, the company home since 1967, to the shiny new 50-floor Enron Building on 1400 Smith Street. The several-block move in downtown Houston ...