In mid-September 2005, Ashley Swenson, chief financial officer (CFO) of Gainesboro Machine Tools Corporation, paced the floor of her Minnesota office. She needed to submit a recommendation to Gainesboro is board of directors regarding the company is dividend policy, which had been the subject of an ongoing debate among the firm is senior managers. Compounding her problem was the uncertainty surrounding the recent impact of Hurricane Katrina , which had caused untold destruction across the southeastern United States. In the weeks after the storm ,