Or will procurement executives again fade into the woodwork, replaced in parts of their jobs by online companies, and in others by executives schooled more in finance and technology than in the fine points of buying?
"Now, the question was, why?" To find the answer, Rapaille and his team set up an experiment with a group of American executives schooled in a management style known as "zero defects".
Not every bank executive has school-age children, but for those who do, offspring can be expensive.
What the Lack appointment underscores, analysts and industry executives agree, is the notion that the business is in such shaky condition that only an executive schooled outside the industry can come up with the radical approach that may be needed.
It crosses all lines: Democrats and Republicans, state officials and lawmakers, local executives, even school board members.
It's the motorcycle of choice for otherwise mild-mannered corporate executives and school teachers who want to borrow Harley's hell-raising image on weekends.
Two years ago, the Conference Board and Americans for the Arts, in association with the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), conducted a survey of executives and school superintendents.
And suggesting that white police chiefs -- or government administrators, or business executives, or school principals -- have the responsibility to confront racism in their workplaces shouldn't be controversial.
The vote came on the same day that Thomas R. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, addressed school finances.
Marty Oestreicher, the Education Department's chief executive for school support services, said he had not received any complaints about P.S. 266.
