Canyon Courier, Evergreen, CO

Pushing Water Uphill With a Rake

By Pamela Lawson

Staff Writer

Steve Baker had his suicide mapped out.

He would climb to a rocky ledge near Mt. Evans
and, in the midst of taking a picture, accidentally
step backwards. That way his wife and two children
would at least benefit from an insurance policy
and perhaps preserve their fine mountain home,
horses, cats, dogs and other aspects of their
comfortable lifestyle.

Baker, who lived in Evergreen, was in the midst
of losing a company that was doing $500 million in
revenues and he believed he was worth more dead
than alive. He was waiting for the right moment to
finish his life when his father called to tell him his
mother had a malignant brain tumor and had six
weeks to live.

   Baker, who had embraced responsibility his entire
life and lived by the motto “If it’s to be, it’s up to me”
snapped out of his dark mood and hopped a plane
to see his mother. 

   That was 1987, when Baker and a fellow business
partner owned the largest independent travel company
in the U.S. located in Genesee with 80 employees. The
partners had invested everything into the business,
having sold other successful operations previously, and
their staff was energetic and loyal. 

   “I didn’t care if I slept I was having so much fun,”
Baker said of those days. The company had partnered
with the likes of Playboy Enterprises, and was in the
midst of signing a $3 million deal with K-Mart. The retail
outlet was planning to invest additional operating capital
into Baker’s company during a fast growth spurt and the
launch of a new product. The very day the companies
were signing on the dotted line a couple of disgruntled
franchise owners sued both companies for $1.4 Billion
over alleged licensing infringements and antitrust violations.
A judge would later throw out the case but the damage
had been done as news of the lawsuit sent company
stocks plummeting.

Baker and his colleagues found two more rounds of
investors soon after and were preparing to close those
deals when the infamous Black Monday of Oct. 19, 1987
sent the stock market into a nose dive two days before
they were scheduled to sign that paperwork.

“We were in total shock, we had to plan our company’s
demise,” Baker remembers.

His newly released book “Pushing Water Uphill with a Rake
—Memoirs of a Successful Failure” was born of those
experiences and those that followed during his survival
and recovery.

“Anybody can do things wrong and fail,” Baker said.
“But sometimes in life, guess what, you can do everything
right and still fail.”

Baker, who now lives in Conifer, is a business consultant
and public speaker targeting businesses, nonprofit
organizations, educational institutions and others with
his poignant story. He believes that many people today
are facing similar catastrophic experiences on a large or
smaller scale and are unable to face them.

“It’s a much bigger club than people know about. It’s
a silent club,” he said. “Guys don’t get together and
discuss failures they talk about successes.”

It took him 10 years to speak of his failure.

Ironically, at many events where he speaks, people
linger after his presentations eager to ask him two
questions. Did he have to go bankrupt? Did he go
through a divorce?

Yes, he went bankrupt, he tells them, knowing many of
those asking are on the verge of doing the same, he said.
No, he did not lose his family.

His wife Marcia broke through the wall of silence that
he had built during that difficult period. The family lost
their home, their horses, their daughter’s prized Yankee
Doodle Donkey, born on July 4, among other irreplaceable
things. But they found ways to discuss feelings and provide
support. The couple has been married now 35 years.

Baker, who has spoken before audiences of 10 people
to 1,500 or more, speckles his conversations with humor
while rattling off the latest statistics about the high rate
of bankruptcies in Colorado and the number of businesses
who fail.

Entrepreneurs have made this country great, he tells
people. But he also shares the good news, bad news scenarios.

“The good news is 98 percent of all businesses in the
United States are small businesses. The bad news is that
80 percent of the new ones will fail in the first five years.”

Baker doesn’t mean to pitch a dirge. He wants people to
be aware of the realities, keep their wits about them and
hang onto the precious things in life.

Despite the pain of his monumental crash, he has fond
memories of the way his company treated it's employees.
Unlike so many employees being trampled by failing
corporations these days, Baker remembers that he and
his partner turned their company into an outsource
center in the “final days,” helped employees upgrade
their resumes,paid them till they ran out of money,
and found all of them new jobs.

Occasionally he runs into one of them on the street
and the reaction is the same. He gets a big hug and the
words “It was the absolute best, and we were so close.”

BUY THE BOOK

Canyon Courier, Evergreen, CO