As I get older – and getting older certainly beats the alternative – I wonder whatever happened to good ol’ what’s his (her) name.
As a young lad I lived in many places starting with Indianapolis Indiana and ending up in Hollywood Florida via Miami and its suburbs (Coconut Grove, Miami Shores). As a young adult in the newspaper business I continued to move around – Orlando (thanks to the USAF) and Cocoa Florida as a hot type printer; on the editorial side in Peru Indiana, Titusville FL, Ely Nevada, Trenton New Jersey, Red Bluff California, Harrisburg Pennsylvania, and Gillette Wyoming. THEN I went across the pond and worked for 4 years in Israel at the University of Tel Aviv and Tadiran.
Over the course of the years I worked as a jack-of-all-trades and most assuredly master of none, newspaper printer, reporter/photographer, and editor; I also did PR in the US and Israel (Tel Aviv University) before becoming a technical writer. This last skill set was put to work in Holon (Tadiran), Fort Lauderdale (Oki), Sarasota (Comdev), and once again Tadiran, this time in Clearwater Florida.
On a job with Trecom Business Systems a company that morphed into DMR that in turn became Fujitsu Consulting, that I fell into what was then known as “business continuity,” the “business version” of IT disaster recovery. Unfortunately, despite doing great business for Y2K, the company could not develop, or perhaps failed to see and seize, opportunities to market/sell business continuity OR documentation and I was “on the street” and, once again, on the move. As a business continuity – later enterprise risk management – practitioner I worked for organizations that included American Express (Vendor Management), State Farm Insurance, City of Charlotte NC, Columbia National Resources, a/k/a CNR, Zim, and Northrop Grumman, among others.
I loved newspapers but tech pubs paid better (and in the end, I sadly watch as newspapers slowly sink into the sunset). As a reporter I could poke my nose into almost anything; not so with tech pubs. Risk management, a/k/a business continuity, allowed me to ask all manner of questions and the pay was at least on a tech writer level, eventually even more – the best of all worlds.
I suppose my life can be reflected in two CW songs: Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again and Geoffrey Mack’s I’ve Been Everywhere. It’s been fun and if I had to do it all over again, I’d pack my bags in a heartbeat.
Along the way I’ve met a number of good people. I remember the names of a few, but while I’ve forgotten a lot of names, I remember fondly many others. OK, there are a few I remember “less fondly.”
This exercise is to see if (a) the people I remember ever look for themselves on line and (b) to see if anyone who knows me wants to reconnect.
Finding the men on the list seemed relatively easy – turns out it is not.
The ladies are almost an impossibility what with name changes – sometimes several name changes.
This then is about the only way to reach out.
The names I recall are below. After the names, some of the schools I attended followed by places I’ve worked.
If you know me – or think you do, my email address is BCPlanner at gmail dot com
- Carol Swartz (KPJH)
- Elyne Marcia Chaftez (KPJH),
- Jess Oliver Gregory (Star-Advocate)
- John Thomas Hester (PS #2)
- Kathleen O’Rourk (KPJH)
- Kathy Cormican (KPJH)
- Larry Sheppard (Comdev)
- Marian (Carmen) O’Rork (Sentinel)
- Robert (Bob) Liotta (HMJH)
- Ron Misner (USAF)
- Sandy Goldstein (HMJH/KPJH),
- Thelma Herndon (KPJH)
Schools
- Barry University
- Horace Mann Junior High
- Kinloch Park Junior High,
- Miami Senior High
Jobs
- 1360 USAF Hospital
- American Express (Vendor Management)
- City of Charlotte NC
- Columbia National Resources a/k/a CNR
- Ely Daily Times
- Gannett-Florida
- Gillette News-Record
- Harrisburg Patriot-News
- Northrop Grumman
- Oki Electronics
- Orlando Sentinel
- Red Bluff Daily News
- State Farm Insurance
- Tadiran
- Tel Aviv University
- Titusville Star- Advocate
- Trecom - DMR
- Trenton Times-Advertiser
- Zim
No comments:
Post a Comment