As a BP Senior Financial Analyst turned Novelist, Rick may be the only American with the knowledge, courage, skills, and motivation to tell the story that only begins with the Deepwater Horizon.
(PRWEB) January 28, 2014
Having spent years in increasingly responsible positions at BP before embarking on a literary career and with three novels to his credit, Rick was perfectly positioned to craft a story around the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Rather than compete with the crush of authors scrambling to publish at the first anniversary long before the story played out, Rick opted to wait and pick his moment.
He granted interviews, wrote articles, and blogged as he watched his former employer deal with the consequences of the oil spill. When the conclusion became foreseeable, he launched the project with the April 2, 2013 tweet, “Just started my new novel, The #BP Corollary. This pic is my first pass at a cover.” That early cover remains the profile pic for both twitter and the book's facebook page. Immersed fully, Rick communicated progress daily until his tweet on October 31, 2013 at Day 185 announced, “The #BP Corollary is finished!”
Investigative journalists, business columnists, oceanographers, environmentalists, and historians among other qualified writers competed for attention well ahead of Rick. While those books are likely well written and informative, they suffer the disadvantage of an outsider’s perspective.
Rick considers his advantage as a former BP insider as the ultimate certification of credibility. Investigative journalists must interview BP employees to understand the corporate culture and the decision-making process. They may find disgruntled employees willing to give up information, but the best their readers can expect are educated guesses and second-hand information from questionable sources with suspect motives. Given the magnitude of the disaster on so many levels, the public deserves an authoritative work.
Consider your author’s resume. Rick holds an MBA in Finance. He began his career at BP as Inventory Accountant where he solved an issue from the breakup of Gulf Oil resulting in annual million-dollar savings. Success thrust him onto the fast track with promotion to Alaskan Trading and Transportation where the company was negotiating with the State of Alaska over its netback calculation methodology. Rick worked closely with the legal team to resolve the issue and was promoted to BP Exploration where he was privileged to work and learn under Lord Browne who went on to become BP CEO. Rick was instrumental in a Lord Browne initiative and earned promotion to Senior Financial Analyst in the Credit Department. He shook the industry when his boss accepted his analysis and cut off credit to Enron’s first subsidiary, Enron Oil Trading. Through the remainder of Rick’s tenure, the oil industry followed the BP lead on large lines of credit. His final success was the BP Credit Decision Model which is still referred to in house as the Lacey Model. Considered revolutionary, that model combined with others written by Rick brought BP America out of the pencil-worksheet era and was responsible for a corporate downsizing. Rick took an early retirement package to pursue a literary career.
Others speculate about corporate culture, but only an insider knows for sure. Rick spent years being indoctrinated with the same series of seminars as every exempt employee. He can and has accurately predicted the BP response.
Rick watched congressional committees interrogate CEO Tony Hayward and accuse him of stonewalling (Reuters, 6/17/2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/17/us-oil-spill-idUSN1416392020100617). Rick understands why outsiders cannot comprehend how it was possible, but as a former BP insider he readily accepts that Tony was not lying and really did not know.
Good writers describe how they imagine BP would have reacted to the explosion and spill. Rick was there for other spills and knows the drill. He even traveled to Alaska and investigated the Valdez spill. Experienced writers must guess at how BP would respond to disaster or react to the press or prepare to defend in court. Only one author writes from personal experience. Rick analyzed financial statements of every US and most foreign oil companies. He distilled raw numbers into financial ratios and translated them into words to communicate results. That ability further separates him from other authors.
The BP Corollary begins in the Gulf and includes scenes in London, Houston, Anchorage, Valdez, Saint Malo, Amsterdam, Cabo San Lucas, Yuma, Tucson, New Orleans, Grand Isle, Cape Coral, Sanibel Island, Captiva Island, and Washington. Dedication to authenticity took Rick to every location.
The novel takes readers from Ancient Egypt and the All-Seeing Eye, to the Knights Templar and International Banking, to our Founding Fathers and the formation of the United States, to the 200-year-old battle between the House of Rothschild and Barings Bank. As readers struggle to separate fact from fiction, they should prepare for revelations regarding the control structure of our world and the idea that oil industry assets may ultimately become a prize in a larger globalist game.
Though this story should have taken place in full view of a concerned world, every reader will learn something new. Anxious to get feedback, Rick granted a 90-day exclusive for a pre-publication eBook available at http://www.amazon.com/BP-Corollary-Rick-Lacey-ebook/dp/B00HFXLL44 pending wider distribution on the March 23, 2014 publication date.
For contact details, review copies, photos, video trailer, and an author bio, you are invited to visit http://www.ricklacey.com, https://www.facebook.com/TheBpCorollary , @RickLacey2, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwhhUsZPF5E.
