The Fleet Sheet
The Fleet Sheet
Marlene M. Reed Professor, School of Business,
Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama
Rochelle R. Brunson Department Chair, Management Development
Alvin Community College, Alvin, Texas
At precisely 8:00 A.M. on Monday, April 3, 2000, faxes began printing out
simultaneously in the offices of English-speaking companies all over
the Czech Republic. Among the news of the Czech Republic translated
into English that day was an interesting political insight gleaned from
two newspapers:
“The Washington Post wrote that Madeleine Albright is the weakest U.S. Secretary of
State since the early 1970s and is now only popular in Prague. Euro quips that that’s
not so bad: the only place Vaclav Havel is now taken seriously is in Washington.”
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It was this kind of honest, straightforward evaluation of the Czech economy and
government that had made the Fleet Sheet so popular to foreign companies and
their managers. For Erik Best, founder of the Fleet Sheet, there were many decisions
to be made concerning the future of the company as well as his own future.
He had begun the business on February 22, 1992, because of a perceived shortterm need by Western companies rushing into Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution for economic and political information that they could understand. He
had envisioned that in a few years these companies would train Czech nationals
to take over their operations in the country, and the English-speaking Westerners
would withdraw. That had not happened, and he now wondered if he had a “going
concern” that lacked a sound organizational and legal structure to survive into the
future. He also wondered how long an operation such as his would continue to be
a viable venture because of rapidly-changing technology and greater access to news
through the Internet. Erik was now 37 years old, and he knew he needed to make
some decisions for the future.
Erik’s Education and Early
Work Experience
Erik was born in North Carolina, and when he was 11 years old, his family moved
to Montana. He went to high school there and wrote for the high school newspaper. He also became a part-time staff sports writer for the Missoulian—the local
newspaper. Near the end of his senior year in high school, Erik was offered a journalism scholarship to Vanderbilt University; however, he turned it down because at
that time he was not sure he wanted to be a journalist. In the back of his mind, he
had thought for some time that he wanted to be involved in business or politics or
perhaps both. He decided to attend Georgetown University, and he received a
degree in Foreign Service from Georgetown in 1985. In the summers while working on his undergraduate degree at Georgetown, he also studied the Russian
language at Middlebury College in Vermont, a school well known for its concentration on international affairs. He subsequently received a Master’s Degree in Russian from Middlebury in the Summer of 1985. Perhaps the educational
experience that had the greatest impact upon Erik’s life was a required four
months’ stint in Moscow. When he had completed his degree at Middlebury, he
entered the M.B.A. program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
and received his M.B.A. degree in 1987.
The Move to Prague
Erik Best, a fluent speaker of the Russian language and one conversant in other
Slavic languages, became enamored with the historic changes taking place in Eastern Europe. Never in the twentieth century had the opportunity existed to be a
part of such a great transformation. Never before in history had countries formerly
living under a Socialist government with centrally planned economies tried to make
the transition to a free market economy where Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”
would be responsible for moving resources into their most advantageous usage.
Therefore, when the offer was made to Erik by the M.B.A. Enterprise Corps to
join them in their work in Czechoslovakia, he quickly accepted. In February of
1991, Erik packed his bags and moved to Prague. He immediately fell in love with
the country and found the Czech language very similar to Russian. In explaining
his love of Prague to others, Erik would state, “I have always loved music, and there
is no city in the world so rich with music as Prague. There are classical concerts daily
in concert halls, churches, town squares, on the breathtaking Charles Bridge, private
chambers, large public halls and under street arches. There are violinists and accordianists playing on street corners and in Metro stations. I have heard that there are
more musicians per capita in the Czech Republic than anywhere else in the world.
After all, it was in Prague that Mozart wrote the opera Don Giovanni and found
greater acclaim than in his own Austria. It was also the home of composers Dvorak
and Smetana. This is one of the reasons I feel at home in this city.”
The Situation in Eastern Europe
In the early 1990s, the breakup of centralized Socialist economies was occurring all
over Eastern Europe. Simultaneously, there was a rapid growth of the private sector in Russia and the surrounding countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. One of the challenges in the burgeoning market economies was creating
small businesses out of large enterprises and also launching entirely new ventures
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