Success, he believed, was most dangerous when it convinced people every future batch deserved to work because the first one had.
The second setback was worse.
A seed-storage refrigeration unit failed during a July thunderstorm while backup power was undergoing scheduled maintenance. Temperature and humidity rose for several hours in one chamber before staff detected it.
No irreplaceable accessions were lost, but some germination percentages dropped.
Cole was furious.
At first he directed that fury at the maintenance technician.
Then Lena brought him the schedule showing Cole himself had approved the overlap between backup maintenance and a refrigeration service window because he wanted both completed before a client inspection.
He stared at his signature.
"That's mine."
"Yes."
"I created the single point of failure."
"You approved it. Several of us failed to challenge it."
Cole closed his eyes.
For ten seconds nobody spoke.
Then he remembered Clara's most annoying rule.
Do not look for a person to blame until you understand the system that made their mistake powerful.
Cole called the whole team together.
"The technician is not being fired," he said. "I approved the maintenance overlap. We're changing the system so no one person, including me, can create that condition again."
The incident cost money.
It also created one of the strongest control procedures in the operation.
Years later, when visitors called Cole a genius for turning garbage into wealth, he usually told them about the refrigeration failure instead.
Most were disappointed.
That was why he told it.
Fame arrived later than money and caused more trouble.
The first national magazine story called Cole "The Garbage Farmer Who Beat Big Agriculture." He hated the headline before he finished reading it.
"We didn't beat anybody," he told the reporter afterward.
"It's a headline."
"It's wrong."
"Arthur Vance lost money while you made half a million dollars on five acres. Readers understand conflict."
"Readers deserve reality."
The reporter laughed politely, the way people laugh when they have no intention of changing anything.
The story ran anyway.
Within a month, Cole received invitations to agricultural conferences, sustainability panels, university seminars, and a television program that wanted him to stand beside a dump truck while a host called tomato waste "red gold."
He declined the television program.
He accepted one university invitation because Elise threatened to stop speaking to him if he did not learn to explain the project to people outside Knox County.
His first lecture took place in an auditorium at Purdue.
Cole stood behind a podium wearing the only sport coat he owned. The opening slide showed the April 1992 photograph from the Herald: red pomace on gray soil, neighbors at the road, Arthur Vance in the background laughing.
The second slide showed the same field in August.
The audience reacted exactly as expected.
Cole waited.