Good luck to Erik as well. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.
One question, as I really don't recall. Did the big downsizings at JN and TF get equal coverage? TD managed to keep his downsizing pretty quiet until a few former associates got some plum jobs. Pete Dye never had to downsize because he always worked the contract labor route.
For the record, I have downsized to three (me, myself and I!) and also have a former employee working contract drafting for me. He lives elsewhere, but with our working relationship, a few phone calls and the ability to transfer large files over the internet, it really makes little difference.
Over the years, I always had a mix of employees and contract labor because in a small biz, you can run one employee heavy in good times to provide excellent service. But you really have to watch payroll at most times, so having a few regular irregular contract guys around helps because you only pay them when you have work, or when they bring in work. I haven't heard of any golf design firms farming drafting out to India yet, but I know several have checked it out.
That part has never changed, other than having 4 architects and 2 contract labor guys in the hey day and 0 and 1 (actually I have 2) now. Employees hanging around full time are generally the easiest since there is no re-training, but having a former employee, especially a guy like Erik, working for you part time is the next easiest.
The only problem for Erik is serving two masters. If he is looking for work himself and looking for Palmer, he will probably have to craft a sales pitch of "I was AP for design purposes, so you can have me at XXX or the King at 4XXX." I recall Bob Cupp used to subtly market similarly when he first went on his own. I heard he would say "Every time you say my name, you can say Nicklaus", for free! Not quite that easy, and on grand openings from JN, but obviously, some guys will buy that pitch.
Overall, what a fragmented business it will become.