Votes are in at Grubb & Ellis

Grubb & Ellis, the real estate investment operation based in Santa Ana, California, now says that its stockholders voted (Dec. 3) to re-elect the three nominees on the incumbent board: Harold H. Greene, Devin I. Murphy and D. Fleet Wallace.

Accordingly, they rejected Tony Thompson and the other two members of his slate -- Harold Ellis Jr. and Stuart Tanz.

Wait, I just noticed something. Sometimes I'm slow. But, one of the members of the defeated dissenting slate has a family name that looks a lot like the name of the company.

Harold ELLIS Jr., versus the incumbents of Grubb & ELLIS.

Ah, yes, there's more than one foiled comeback saga here. I understood that Thompson, the leader of the dissident slate, was a former chairman of the company, trying to return to it after a (brief) period at Elba. But what I didn't realize until just now was that the Ellis on his slate is also the Ellis on the company door. He founded the company half a century ago.

Ah, corporate history. Ah, humanity.