A little over 10 years ago, Louise O’Sullivan was serving as president of one of Dover Corp.’s myriad divisions. One of her duties in that role was to attend the bi-annual cattle calls, i.e.— corporate executive business meetings attended by approximately 22 Dover decision makers. Invariably, at some point in those meetings, someone would ask, “Since we all buy the same things, why don’t we pool our signifi cant purchasing power to achieve better pricing and service?”