Gary Grimes: 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

"When I got this job three years ago, I felt a little like an ER doctor. Sun's channel was in disarray, and partner profitability was in the tank,"

said Grimes, Sun's vice president of U.S. partner management and sales, at GE Access' recent New Frontiers Conference for solution providers. "Perhaps the most damning element of all of that was that [solution providers] didn't trust us, and our sales people didn't trust [them]."

Well, times have changed, and the Sun-solution provider relationship is a whole lot better these days. Give credit to Grimes, who has spent 32 years in the high-tech market—the past 17 of them at Sun—for that turnaround. Grimes took three disparate programs—software, hardware and services—and combined them into one iForce partner community that the VAR community has learned to trust.

"It was a lot of administrative work and heavy lifting, but it was worth it," Grimes says. "I think it became a lot easier to partner with Sun and work with us."

Grimes' partner program overhaul took the better part of two years. At the end of that period, Grimes says he eliminated fully 95 percent of the costs for certification and competency training and education for Sun partners, which has allowed the company to stay profitable.

"We've also implemented benchmark performance measures for our channel sales operation," he says. "We're serious about improving channel sales and partner satisfaction."

It's all part of the Grimes-led "Putting Partners First" initiative, a campaign focused on increasing profitability for solution-provider partners, making it simpler for partners to do business with Sun and rewarding partners for their investment in a Sun business.

And here's the proof: Sun's U.S. channel partners generated $500 million in revenue in the last fiscal quarter—the first quarter in five years that partners did half a billion dollars in business, according to a company spokesperson.

And when Grimes steps down in December, to be replaced by Greg Stroud, it will be with the confidence of a channel manager who knows he's leaving Sun in better shape than when he took the channel job three years ago.

"I really do think we're primed for growth," Grimes says.

The Early Days

Grimes, 58, was born in Birmingham, Mich., in 1946. His first stab at college, a stint at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., didn't work out and he found himself in Vietnam.

"It was penance for having [messed] around in college," he says. "I became fairly serious about the future after Vietnam."

The now-diligent Grimes graduated from the University of Maryland with a bachelor of science degree in marketing in 1972. He then joined Burroughs, one of four major computer vendors he would work for during the course of his career. Managerial stints at Data General and Perkin-Elmer followed before Grimes joined Sun in August 1987 as a district manager.

"I was given the opportunity to start a commercial business in D.C. by Dick Bowman, one of my predecessors running the channel at Sun who knew me from Data General," he recalls.

In the 1990s, Grimes held assorted district and regional management positions, including a stint as the vice president of the Southern area for the Americas' sales organization. Grimes was named Region Director of the Year in 1994, and Vice President of the Year in 1999.

Grimes says he'll always remember Sun's heyday with great fondness.

"Budgets were seemingly unlimited and targets were always obtainable. It was just an unbelievable market," Grimes recounts. "We weren't able to keep up with demand. People were buying things just to have the cache of Sun."

Then, as it did everywhere in the land of technology, the sun set.

"Things came to a screeching halt, like somebody closed the door to the bank. It was absolutely unforeseen, and we thought it was a transient event," Grimes says.

Sun reorganized in response, handing the channel reins to Grimes, an executive known to be partner friendly.

"After the bubble burst, the channel was in disarray. Programs developed in the early '90s were tired, at best; our competency and certification programs had not kept pace," Grimes says. "Linux was emerging dramatically—we didn't have an answer. We didn't have a good story about Linux or Windows, relative to the Solaris environment. So we needed to respond."

Grimes listened to the needs of channel partners, reinstituting Sun's partner council and completely revamping its partner program. Sun also became the first technology company to build a series of initiatives based on rebates, he says.

When Grimes took over, the channel represented 42 percent of sales. In fiscal 2004, that number was 54 percent.

"I think I restored the channel's faith in Sun," he says.

To be sure, the channel chief's actions have engendered plenty of admiration during his tenure.

"Gary was never afraid to swim against the current to get things done. While difficult market conditions hamstrung growth for many businesses, his confidence and vision for the powerful role the channel would play at Sun and the industry as a whole never wavered," says Anna McDermott, president and CEO of colossal Sun distributor GE Access. "Gary's many accomplishments included his ability to redefine partner relationships and drive profitability back into the channel by creating compelling partner programs, such as Sun's iForce, Storage Elite and TARP initiatives. Today, Sun's partner initiatives are widely considered to be among the industry's most successful and are largely due to Gary's unrelenting determination."

Bill Cate, Sun's director of the U.S. iForce program office, also had no shortage of praise to bestow on Grimes.

"People who work for Gary want to give 150 percent, not because he demands it, but because you want to. When we were faced with really tricky decisions, Gary would help us [find] the right decision and somehow make us feel like it was our idea," Cate says. "He's the kind of good sport who will don a dress to participate in an internal company skit for sales managers or hop on a red eye to be the keynote speaker the next morning because a friend in the industry needs his help at a major event. The channel partners quickly learned to trust Gary and respected his style. They didn't always like his message, but he is a straight shooter, something the partners appreciate."

Looking Ahead

When Grimes stepped up to the podium to collect his Lifetime Achievement Award this summer at VARBusiness' Annual Report Card (ARC) event in Chicago, his thoughts turned to two distinct themes.

"There are two things I've learned that have been driven home in the past three years," he told an appreciative crowd. "The first is the value of partners to a vendor. Not all vendors appreciate the importance of partners, nor do they recognize the value. It's important that you as solution providers bringthe value add that end users buy.

"The second thing is much more personal," he continued, thanking his Sun team. "I've learned the value of teamworkthe people who deserve recognition are the ones who make things happen."

When Grimes steps down at the end of the year, he'll have plenty to look forward to, including the birth of a second grandchild in November; his first is 3 years old. Grimes' two adult daughters and their families live nearby, so he plans to spend more time with all of them, including his wife, Sandy.

A former CIA intelligence officer, Grimes' wife was responsible, along with her partner, for the capture of notorious rogue agent Aldridge Ames. Grimes said he never really knew about the specifics of her job—she couldn't really talk about it—but that some of her assignments prevented them from communicating directly for weeks at a time. Odds are, he won't miss that.

He'll also get more time in for his beloved 18 holes and to polish off The New York Times crossword with his first cup of coffee.

"There was an awful lot of travel. I was traveling 75 percent of the time, and it was getting old. It feels like a good time to step out," Grimes says. "I did about as much as I could to restore confidence and trust. I think it will serve the partners well."

Will he miss the game? "Yeah. It's one of those things that is really hard to walk away from," he says. "I'll miss the energy and the excitement. And the relationships. I've gotten to know a lot of these partners really well, and I have a ton of respect for what they do."

Timeline: Gary Grimes

1960s GARY GRIMES GOES TO WAR After a first stab at college, Grimes gets shipped to Vietnam in 1967. After a stint with the 101st Airborne Division, he returns to the states to attend the University of Maryland, from which he receives a marketing degree in 1972.

1970s A YOUNG EXEC ON THE MOVE Out of school, Grimes joins Burroughs in 1972, the first of four major computer vendors he will work for in managerial roles during the course of his career. He's shown here with his older daughter Kelly in 1973. A younger daughter, Tracy, came four years after Kelly.

1980s GRIMES JOINS SUN After working at Data General and Perkin-Elmer, Grimes joined Sun in August 1987 as a district manager.

1990s THE GLORY DAYS Both Grimes and Sun prospered during this decade. Grimes kept getting promoted and was named Sun's Vice President of the Year in 1999. It was also a great time for the company. "Budgets were seemingly unlimited, and targets were always obtainable," Grimes reflects.

2000s THE SUNSET YEARS? In the three years since he was named vice president of U.S. partner management and sales, Grimes has transformed Sun's partner program. He says he'll miss the day-to-day, but, on the plus side, he'll gets to spend more time with his wife, Sandy.