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Executive Travel Woes

Category:	Logic-Grid
Submitted By:	caberet
Fun:	(2.95)
Difficulty:	(3.38)

Ms. Langston and four other executives are experiencing the downturn in the economy. While traveling on Wednesday of last week, they had to fly on commercial aircraft instead of enjoying the comfort of private jets. Each executive is an expert in a particular area of business. Use the following clues to determine the first and last name of each executive along with her position, company and her special expertise. No two executives share the same name, position, company or forte.

First Names: Ann, Arlice, Meg, Patricia, Rene
Last Names: Barnes, Langston, Mulcahy, Russo, Whitman
Positions: Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chairperson, Commissioner, President
Companies: ieTrade, Lenamar Tech, Licent Co., Sabancci Ltd., The Surat Group
Fortes: Invention, Leadership, Political Connections, Profit Margin, Stock Options

1. Neither the CEO (who is not the leadership guru) nor the one with the excellent political connections (who is not a CFO or with Licent Co.) is surnamed Russo (who is neither Patricia nor Rene.)

2. Both Ann and Ms. Langston boarded in San Francisco and deplaned in Chicago; the leadership specialist and the chairperson flew from Chicago to Washington, D.C.; the flight of the Sabancci Ltd. executive (who is not surnamed Mulcahy) was from D.C. to New York.

3. The Lenamar Tech. executive (who has no special political connections) and the inventor (who is neither CEO nor CFO) are either the commissioner and chairperson in some order, or are surnamed Russo and Barnes, in some order; only one of these alternatives is true, the other is false.

4. Arlice is neither the ieTrade CFO nor Ms. Barnes; the profit margin specialist is not amongst the three executives.

5. Neither Meg (who is neither the stock options specialist nor the inventor) nor Ms. Mulcahy (who is not Arlice, who is not the chairperson) is affiliated with either Licent Co. or The Surat Group (who is not Rene).

6. Of the CEO (who is not Ms. Russo) and the profit margin specialist (who is not Rene, who is not the chairperson), one is Ms. Whitman and the other is associated with Lenamar Tech (who is not Ann).

7. The stock option specialist is either Ms. Barnes or the executive that works with Sabancci Ltd. (who is neither Patricia, who is not the commissioner, nor Rene.)

8. The president (who is not with Sabancci Ltd.) is not the inventor (who is neither surnamed Whitman nor Barnes.) Ms. Barnes is not the leadership guru.

9. The Surat Group executive is neither surnamed Langston nor Whitman.

Hint:

The inventor must be the chairperson or the commissioner (not CEO or CFO from clue 3 or president from clue 8.) Clue 3 tells us that the inventor cannot be either Ms. Russo or Ms. Barnes. This also means that the Lenamar Tech. executive also is not surnamed either Russo or Barnes, and that the commissioner and the chairperson cannot be either Russo or Barnes.

Ms. Barnes must be Ann because she does not fit into any of the other options in clue 2.

The Sabancci executive (who can only be CEO or Commissioner) is not Ms. Russo who can only be! CFO or President. As you fill in the grid, you will see that the person with Sabannci ( who can only be Arlice or Meg) cannot be Ms. Mulcahy (who can only be Patricia or Rene.)

Ms. Surat cannot be commissioner or chairperson because she only can be surnamed Barnes or Russo, but commissioner and chairperson can't be either of those two surnames.

Once we discover that the inventor is the Commissioner, we know that the Lenamar executive must be Chairperson and the rest of the answers fall into place.

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Comments on this teaser


Posted by dswilborn	02/06/10
This one I worked once in order of clues, then noticed a mistake. So I worked from the bottom up and got it. Nicely done! :D

Posted by nidhikaila	02/06/10
i thoroughly loved this puzzle! Thank you!

Posted by braindeadmommia	02/06/10
Brilliant! I loved that it was challenging with the double negatives. Thanks.

Posted by caberet	02/06/10
:D Thank you for all the great comments, everyone! :D

Posted by mrsfessler	02/07/10
great puzzle! Challenging! I loved it!

Posted by RaggedyRoses	02/16/10
It is stated in the story line that "Ms. Langston and four other executives .... Each executive is an expert .... determine the first and last name of each executive ...." So, then ... I can only assume that all five women are executives, so how can the profit margin specialist not be "among the three executives" when acutally all five women are supposed to be executives?

Posted by caberet	03/22/10
Raggedy - To answer your question: I can only assume that all five women are executives, so how can the profit margin specialist not be "among the three executives" when acutally all five women are supposed to be executives? It means that the profit margin specialist is a 4th person, not one of the 3 previously mentioned in that clue. I'm sorry if that wasn't clearer.

Posted by mom2boys	04/09/10
Great job!

Posted by Gizzer	08/03/10
I was not able to determine a unique solution to this. I have 3 of the women identified properly, and I know the remaining 2 are Meg Russo and Patricia Mulcahy, who are the ieTrade CFO, who is a leadership guru, and the Lenamar Tech chairperson, who is a profit margin specialist. However, I cannot find anything that determines which name goes with which description. Am I missing something, or is there a clue missing?

Posted by chriscat	10/20/10
Gizzer, I have the same issue. The only reason I can think of to conclude that the answer is as given is that the other alternative associates Ms. Russo with Lenamar Tech., which is half of the "false" alternative of clue #3. Logically speaking, though, "A and B" is false unless both "A" and "B" are true, so that shouldn't rule out Ms. Russo being with Lenamar, since Ms. Barnes is not the inventor.

Posted by caberet	10/20/10
To answer Gizzer and chriscat: We know that Ms. Russo cannot be the CFO from Clue 1. After going through all the clues, we know that the ieTrade Chairperson with excellent Leadership skills can only be surnamed Mulcahy, Russo or Whitman. We know that the Lenamar Tech Chairperson who is a Profit margin Specialist can ony be surnamed Mulcahy or Whitman. But we were previously told that Ms. Whitman was not with Lenamar, so Ms. Mulcahy must be the Lenamar Chair. I hope this answers your questions. Please let me know if I didn't explain it well enough.

Posted by chriscat	10/20/10
I don't understand why the Lenamar Tech Chairperson who is a Profit margin Specialist cannot be Ms. Russo. If you are deriving this from Clue #3, this is not a correct interpretation of the "and" statement in the false alternative, as Ms. Barnes is not the inventor. When I read through your solution and a solution where in Meg Russo and Patricia Mulcahy have reversed attributes, both work for me. What am I missing? (And, btw, I think in your explanation above you meant "We know that Ms. Russo cannot be the CEO from Clue 1." She is in fact the CFO. Anyway, no problem with that point.)

Posted by Kronos	12/29/10
I found that the clues are complicated to understand. many variables and can get confusing if not given complete attention. Deserves the high difficulty rating that I and many others have given it.

Posted by mom_rox	12/31/10
Hi caberet. I too am confused by the wording. from your hint: "The inventor must be the chairperson or the commissioner." I AGREE "Clue 3 tells us that the inventor cannot be either Ms. Russo or Ms. Barnes." I DISAGREE One possibility (trial and error) is that Ms. Russo can be the Inventor and that Ms. Barnes can be with Lenamar Tech. Clue 3 does not tell you this fact - you have to work through this possibility to find out that this combination will not work. Therefore, the surnames of the Inventor and Lenamar Tech. executives are not exclusively Russo and Barnes, but the wording leaves open the possibility that one of their surnames could be either Russo or Barnes. The clue does not automatically eliminate both surnames for both women. At this point, you can logically deduce the correct solution without any more "trial and error" scenarios, but it takes some time to work through this. Great puzzle, but I think the wording in Clue 3 is too ambiguous.

Posted by wiser_now	01/15/11
Again, a challenging and well written puzzle!

Posted by plasternutty	05/06/11
I agree with mom rocks. The clues need to be edited. Sorry. You need to establish somehow that Barnes is DEFINITIVELY not the Lenamar exec. Where is that tidbit? To simplify, I got rid of the "negatives" and unnecessary words. I also put (parentheses) around the pair(s). 1. (The Lenamar Tech. and the inventor) are EITHER 2. (the commissioner and chairperson) in some order, OR are 3. (Russo and Barnes), in some order. That's ALL that the clue gives us. Barnes isn't the inventor, but Russo could be. And that means that Barnes COULD be the Lenamar employee. * Possible fix? * Get rid of the second "in some order" allowance and swap the order in which the surnames appear. Change the clue to: 1. (The Lenamar Tech. and the inventor) are EITHER 2. (the commissioner and chairperson) in some order, OR are 3. (Barnes and Russo)

Posted by dreamlvr1432	06/14/11
I agree that clue 3 needs to be edited. Otherwise an excellent puzzle. :D

Posted by caberet	06/14/11
Some people seem to have difficulties understanding clue 3. It's essential to determine whether the 3 options fit into one pair or the other. Other clues show us that the inventor MUST be the chairperson or the commissioner, thereby excluding either Ms. Russo or Ms. Barnes as an option, leaving only the other pair as a possibility. I hope this clears things up. I do thank you for your comments.

Posted by roseyb75	12/27/11
Clue Three got me confused. :-?

Posted by Obilio	11/27/12
Hww, a hard one to be sure, but fun. :) Thank you, and please make more! The challenge is what makes puzzles fun in the first place . One tiny suggestion if I may, ( I couldn't write one of these puzzles if I had a gun to my head, but I've solved quite a few). In the clue that says, " not one of 'the' three executives..." I would have changed 'the' to 'these', thus making it clear that you were speaking of a fourth person. I had trouble with that too. Thanks again, though, you are clearly very good at this!

Posted by spikethru4	02/14/13
Fiendish! :)