Irvine to Host 3.5-Mile Race : Corporate Challenge: Can Anyone Outrun Rockwell?

On June 12, a mail room clerk could easily upset the chairman of the board and not get fired.

That is, if the upset comes as the clerk beats the chairman across the finish line.

On that evening, about 1,200 Orange County business people are expected to shed their business suits and don running togs for the Irvine debut of the Manufacturers Hanover Corporate Challenge: A race that feeds on corporate competitiveness.

Requests from runners at Orange County companies prompted the New York City-based bank to bring its popular 3.5-mile foot race to Irvine’s William R. Mason Park.

Irvine joins New York, Boston, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco and other cities in hosting the event. Runners, who pay $6 to enter, compete on four-member teams for an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City for a championship race in November.

This year, Manufacturers Hanover Trust will spend about $560,000 sponsoring 14 Corporate Challenges around the country and in Ireland.

“Companies like the race because it is less expensive than supporting a golf tournament, tennis or even sandlot baseball,” said Fred Lebow, president of the New York City Road Runners Club and the Corporate Challenge’s senior race director. “You don’t usually have an event where a lower executive can compete against the chief executive. Even the mail room clerk could one-up the chairman.”

In 1977, the first Corporate Challenge drew about 200 runners from a dozen companies. Last year, Lebow said the New York City race was mobbed with 10,000 people representing virtually every Fortune 500 company.

Lebow, who also organizes the New York City Marathon, said lawyers tend to be the fastest runners, with bankers and Wall Street types a close second. “Lawyers have a little more time to run than bankers, who work longer hours.”

He said the Rockwell International Track Club is the odds-on favorite to win the Irvine race because the team won last year’s Los Angeles event.

Rockwell’s club, with about 125 members from Rockwell divisions around Southern California, competes in one or two running events each month and is so successful that it often is the subject of whispered speculation that the company hires people specifically for their running abilities.

John Pulley, the Rockwell club captain, denies such rumors--although he admits to once asking a supervisor to hire an otherwise qualified college graduate who also happened to be an especially fast runner.

Pulley, who is a project manager for Rockwell’s North American Aircraft Operations in El Segundo, said there is no formal hiring policy regarding athletic abilities. Rockwell just tends to hire engineers and others who happen to be fast runners, he said.

Rockwell’s management gives the club moral support, but little else. “We have to drag them kicking and screaming to the checkbook,” said Pulley, adding that direct corporate support has totaled $500 so far.

“I don’t know what their hiring procedures are, but Rockwell has a lot of fast runners,” said Tim Kirchner, assistant director of special events for Manufacturers Hanover Trust.

Kirchner said the Corporate Challenge has proven to be a wildly successful marketing tool for his bank, which has had little visibility outside of New York City despite its ranking as the fourth largest bank in the country.

Kirchner said the bank spends about $40,000 to sponsor each race, which not only attracts news coverage but gives the bank and participating companies an excuse to have parties and receptions for customers and prospective clients.

“These companies compete against each other every day on a business basis,” he said. “The race gives them an opportunity to compete for fun.”