The vibe of the time
I was hired as part of the Ron Holland era. My title was customer service/warranty, but a big part of my job was doing the custom deck layouts for all of the models in production, and the biggest part was to run the factory race programs for the RH 36 and 33. We had our own 36 which I sailed, and NORCAL Yachts in SF also raced one-they actually sailed the aluminum prototype (mostly) and I mostly sailed our factory production hull.
I can tell you that there was no feeling of snubbing BK, and he was held in the higest esteem during my time at Ericson.
I think the only issue was that Ericson wanted to bring an IOR type boat to market, and Ron Holland and Doug Peterson had the most succesful IOR boats during that time.
Make no mistake, BK designed some of the most significant IOR boats ever, and I was lucky enough to sail on all 3 of these (Terrorist, Hawkeye, and Aggressive II). They were aluminim bilge boarders, all custom, and not suited well for production building.
But, from a production and marketing perspective, Holland was very hot, and more marketable as a designer for an IOR racer/cruiser.
That was the story as I recall it.
Later,
S