fred

He previously worked for Koch Industries, now known as Koch, an energy-based conglomerate founded by Fred Koch.

Fred manages his team with a benevolent but wary hand.

Fred dreams of beating his annual sales goal and earning a trip to Palm Springs, Calif., a place he reveres “the way others may have felt about Canterbury or Jerusalem or Mecca.”

The Ohio-based team Mr. Dorsey brings to life in “The Force” is headed by Fred Thomas, one of the Cleveland district’s “most valuable players.”

Fred’s boss is a man of “slightly unhinged intensity,” whom Fred has seen, more than once, “weep on cue, before the entire district, like a fund-raising evangelist.”