The pursuit of greatness: luncheon speaker Joe Calloway focuses on how companies can become extraordinary.

• Author: Lewis, David

Joe Calloway is one of three high-powered speakers at the 6th Annual Rocky Mountain Corporate Growth Conference luncheon on Thursday, March 13, and he is tickled that the speaker at the ACG breakfast that morning is to be Howard Putnam.

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Putnam is the former president of Southwest Airlines and Braniff Airlines, famously guiding that beleaguered carrier through its bankruptcy.

"I know Howard, but I did not know that he was going to be the other speaker that day," Calloway says during a telephone interview. "I'm going to touch base with Howard on what his message is going to be, and see how I can blend with him without saying the same thing. He's a fun speaker, and he'll be great."

Calloway then tells a well-known Putnam story about getting in an accident with a truck, then giving the truck driver a lift to town in his Cadillac ... well, we'll let Putnam tell it at breakfast.

Putnam, commenting from a cruise somewhere off Barcelona, Spain, e-mailed in response to a reporter's query: "Yes, I know Joe. Talented and held in high esteem as an author and speaker. Be great to see him again."

Yet it is plain that ACG attendees that Thursday are due for, if not exactly a love-fest between the two lead speakers, then a respect-fest anyway.

Calloway is author of "Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison." He is a consultant and a Nashville restaurateur. He is an energetic speaker who thrives on audience give-and-take.

In his book Calloway observes that a common thread among extraordinary companies is that they make very deliberate decisions to pursue greatness. It's as if they're saying, "'Let's see how far we can go, how much fun we can have, how much money we can make,'" he says.

"Becoming a Category of One" is an obvious fit with the ACG and its 2008 conference theme, "Build, Buy or Sell: Driving Corporate Growth." So is Calloway's second book, "Indispensable: How to Become the Company that Your Customers Can't Live Without." In its preface, Calloway explains that he means, "The mother lode, the jackpot...