2 More Quit in Power Struggle at Alpha Micro
Two more high-level executives have left Alpha Microsystems in the wake of the power struggle that rocked the troubled Santa Ana computer maker last year, the company announced Wednesday.
Alpha Micro officials said Leonard Palladino, vice president and general manager of international sales, and Jeff Stanger, vice president of human resources, left the company earlier this month following the “structured management transition” in which company Chairman Richard Cortese, chief legal counsel Mary K. Carrington and two outside directors resigned.
According to documents detailing the terms of that transition, Cortese and Carrington won one-time cash severance payments. Cortese, whose annual salary had been about $190,000, received $275,000 and Carrington, who had earned $95,000 annually, received $100,000.
The documents, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, reported that other executives terminated by the company before next September would also receive unspecified severance payments. Details on any payments received by Palladino and Stanger were not available Wednesday.
Sources familiar with the company said the two vice presidents were asked to quit as part of an overall shakeup by company founders Richard Wilcox and Robert Hitchcock, who regained control of the company last month after a lengthy power struggle with Cortese.
The sources said the founders blamed Cortese and his corporate growth strategy for Alpha Micro’s string of losses, which grew to more than $4.4 million from early 1985 through 1986, and now want to rid the company of his supporters.
“It was a struggle over whether we should be a growth company or remain small and more profitable,” said one former official. “Our philosophy was that we needed size and needed to grow. The founders wanted a smaller company. It was really two different management philosophies.”
The former official said the clash between the differing views came to a head in August, when Alpha Micro contemplated a possible merger with Point 4, a Tustin business computer maker. Wilcox and Hitchcock were said to have opposed the proposal, while Cortese, whom they hired in 1982 to manage the company, supported the merger as a way to give Alpha Micro a buffer against the ongoing computer industry turbulence.
Hitchcock and Wilcox, who together control more than 25% of the company’s stock, were successful in retaking control of the company they founded in 1977 after threatening to launch a shareholder proxy fight.
