40 years of DAI

Mickelwait knew that Barclay had introduced
much-needed business discipline to DAI, but
he could not help worrying, as Max Goldensohn
put it, that Barclay’s overall direction was
toward “more business and less development.”
This concern was not really warranted, but Barclay
understood it. “It was almost like a father
feeling that he’d been raising his kids to play a
good role in society and he doesn’t want them
going to work on Wall Street,” he acknowledged
later.
The directors faced a classic dilemma: how to
guide a transition of leadership from a charismatic
founder of a successful business to
a younger, more buttoned-down successor
who would be able to provide capabilities and
strategy more attuned to the company’s future
needs. Barclay developed the 1999 strategic
plan, which envisioned acquiring IQC “franchises”
to protect DAI’s market share and revenue
level with USAID (then $60 million). Aiming for
$100 million in revenue by 2003, he assumed
that 40 percent would come from nontraditional
sources, including Bannock (European revenue),
ECIAfrica (revenue from southern Africa), and
other new initiatives. Barclay believed in making
a commitment to specific targets, including
stock appreciation. Mickelwait had always
been more open-ended in his thinking and less
focused on financial targets.
On March 6, 1999, the directors approved the
new strategic plan and brought the succession
process to a conclusion. On April 9, the last day
of DAI’s 1999 staff conference, Barclay became
CEO. John Buck, Charlie Sweet, and Don Mickelwait
all attended a “Built to Last Blast” held
that evening. Mickelwait ended the day as DAI’s
official “Founder and Director.” There had been
some talk of providing him with a founder’s
corner office upstairs from Barclay’s. But Mickelwait
cared too much about the future of the
company to hover over his successor once the
process was complete. He moved to Bangkok
and began spending lots of time in China, which
was, as he later put it, “as far away as I could
get.”
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