94 UtaH INTERNATIONAL: A BIOGRAPHY OF A BUSINESS fast.” He also credited his work at Golden State with creating his expertise at putting the right people in the right places. While Littlefield enhanced these abilities, Marriner Eccles watched from afar with another plan for his future, but the Wattis grandson was not looking for a new opportunity, particularly in the family business, “because I was succeeding in my own right with the Golden State dairy company and knew something of Utah’s slowdown during the late 1940s.” In 1951, thirty-seven-year-old Ed Littlefield was living in Los Angeles with his wife, Jeannik Mequet Littlefield, and their two children. One day, Marriner Eccles called and arranged a round of golf at the Los Angeles Country Club for Littlefield, himself, George Eccles, and Arthur Stoddard, president of Union Pacific Railroad. I have been told that Shephard Mitchell suggested to Marriner that the company “needed someone like Ed Littlefield but you probably can’t get him.” Marriner remembered me from our two or three meetings in Washington and, without saying anything to the Wattis family members of the board, set about to see if he could persuade me to come in. He had cleared the idea with the directors who represented the other families, but only checked with the Wattis family directors after we had come to an agreement. After the game, Littlefield joined the Eccles brothers for cocktails. Littlefield recalled that Marriner “didn’t beat around the bush” but bluntly asked him if he had any inclination to work for Utah. Littlefield remembered being both surprised and flattered, but said, “No.” Paul Wattis had offered him a job with the family-owned corporation prior to his graduation from business school, but he had refused it, wanting to see if he could make it in the business world on his own steam. Besides, his uncle’s invitation was hardly an offer on a silver platter—“$100 a month, when and if they had some work to do.” Eccles persisted, and, as the conversation continued, Littlefield became increasingly intrigued. Disclosing the concerns of the board about the quality and quantity of information they were getting