With revenues of $600 million in 1998, the Szczecin shipyard in Poland is one of that country's most notable post-Cold War economic successes, according to an article in USA Today (November 8, 1999). The yard's turnaround is all the more remarkable for having been achieved without benefit of foreign investors or foreign capital.

In 1991, due in large part to defaults on payments by customers in the Soviet Union and other crumbling communist economies, the shipyard found itself $260 million in debt, hounded by five thousand angry creditors, and targeted for shutdown by the Polish government. Enter Robert Pollan (MBA '88), then thirty years old, a man with a plan that became the blueprint for Szczecin's transformation. "It was a unique moment in history," said Pollan. "My parents were Polish; there were lots of emotional reasons to try and help."

Pollan's plan was executed by the shipyard's new director, Kryzstof Piotrowski, a former worker at the yard who had been dismissed six years earlier for political reasons and had gone on to get a doctorate in maritime engineering. Piotrowski performed wonders, restructuring the yard's debt, appeasing creditors, and focusing on building midsize container ships, for which there was steady demand.

The Szczecin shipyard saga became the subject of a 1995 Harvard Business Review article touting it as a model of post-communism management. But yard officials aren't resting on their laurels as they face ongoing challenges stemming from industrywide overcapacity and stiff competition from Asian shipbuilders.

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