There are so many amusing and memorable moments in my career. It makes me smile to think of them. This is not a stuffy blog expounding on my “wins” although there are some in here. It’s an informal look back at some of the fun things I encountered throughout the years as well as some of the people who made a good impression on me.
These memorable moments are in no particular order.
1. Getting Washington’s National Park Fund on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update (at 1:47 on the video)and having it announced (and me singled out) at their annual auction, live, as it happened, in front of 500 people.
2. Supporting a TIME magazine cover photoshoot with Bill Gates, which also included me driving him solo across the Microsoft campus in my car. (I used that story when I sold the car later.)
3. Working for two years on the Global Ocean Refuge System (now called Blue Parks), which all about protecting the biodiversity of the world’s oceans in a scientific and systematic way. It was rewarding to work on something so important and I learned about the havoc we are creating for our oceans.
4. Going on press tour with the lovely Melinda French, who was then just engaged to Bill Gates. She always treated me with respect, and I am enjoying watching her exceptional work for women, and all of humankind, now.
5. Working the RealNetworks event that the company hosted for only 250 media and other influentials at the Rainbow Room in New York City, where internationally-acclaimed, four-time Grammy Award winner, Annie Lennox sung to us. This was several years ago, and I am quite sure she sung “Why” among a couple other of her famous songs to our small group. If I remember correctly, Jon Stewart and a couple other celebrities were there too.
6. Negotiating a quote for my then client Brian McAndrews, then CEO of Avenue A (which became aQuantive and was later sold to Microsoft for $6 Billion), in The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of AvenueA’s biggest competitor at the time, DoubleClick (which was later acquired by Google). One can only imagine how the team at DoubleClick must have seethed when they read it. Of the six-paragraph coverage, one paragraph was the quote by Brian.
7. When the delightful Teri Franklin, formerly with Avenue A, brought our DDB Worldwide Communications team mimosas after an especially good win. So thoughtful of her.
8-page feature story on AvenueA in Fast Company.
8. When the same Teri handed a hot lead to me and I was able to turn it into an eight-page feature story on AvenueA in Fast Company, complete with several images of the company executives. (See image above.)
9. When Naveen Jain arrived hungry to our DDB Worldwide Communications meeting to pitch him (he was CEO of InfoSpace at the time), we scrambled and served him nachos and won the business. Ah, the power of a plate of nachos…
10. Going on a lengthy East Coast press tour for Microsoft Word with Chris Peters and Jon Reingold, both great people who I enjoyed immensely. One day we didn’t meet for breakfast as usual, all skipped it, and were so jam packed with meetings we didn’t eat until 5pm at a dingy pancake house. All we had to eat until then was Easter candy that my dear mom had given to me prior to the trip. We laughed our heads off that day and on the many other press tours we went on together.
11. The executives at the client companies who invited me to their company parties and holiday gatherings at their homes and made me feel like an important part of the team. The executives responsible are Ben Elowitz, Rob Grady, Curt Blake and Pat Murphy. All good and smart men.
12. A few of my Seagate Software clients, who road-tripped down from Vancouver, BC to take part in my big housewarming party a couple decades ago (yes, decades). They surprised with fresh Dungeness crab to eat beforehand and spent the night. That was another company that always made me feel part of their team and included me in regular high-level business strategy meetings with the top executives.
13. Leading Media Training for Seagate Software in Vancouver, B.C., San Luis Obispo, CA and during a 4-day trip to Europe which took me to their offices in London, Paris, Munich and Frankfurt.
14. Going on a lengthy press tour with the wonderful Rich Bray, then the leader of the Microsoft Money group. We got caught in a major East Coast snowstorm and had to stay an extra night in New York City. He was kind enough to treat me to see the Blue Man Group at The Apollo. They were amazing! Rich also always impressed me with his ability to confidently speak to a room of more than 500 people.
15. All the times I laughed with my then client Andy Nickerson, formerly with Aerovel, on the phone when I worked with him. In the two years we worked together, he taught me a lot about the drone industry, proactively sent me books and proactively sent me magazines he picked up at trade shows. I finally met him in-person for the first time when I was in San Diego recently. We had beers and dinner at a pub. I should have bought him a much nicer dinner for all those laughs and the many client leads he gave me over the years.
16. The many large packages of chocolate from Spain that my favorite web developer, Dan Byrd, sent to me over the years during the holidays.
17. Becoming friends with several colleagues and clients, with two standout former colleagues being Joanne Petitto and Ann Marie Ricard, both of whom will be lifelong friends. Joanne and I traveled to a week-long surf camp together as well as to Malta to scuba dive, and we also spent time in Paris and Amsterdam together. She now lives with her husband in Luxembourg. Ann Marie is also a gem and always has been. Her calm and grounding nature has been a powerful force in my life. Another dear friend is the creative and vibrant Tracy Peterson, who I met when I worked on Holland America Line multiple times. She and I are close friends, talk often and will be friends for life as well.
A thank you gift from the Microsoft Bob team for a job well done on their announcement.
18. Leading the PR for Microsoft Bob. Sure you snicker, but I still have thick, old-school paper books with prestigious media coverage that we generated prior to the announcement. They are somewhere in my basement. I may even have a Bob hat, and a shrink-wrapped copy of the product which I am convinced will be worth big money someday. It was the classic case of “you can market the heck out of something, but if the product doesn’t have a real market, it won’t sell.”
19. The many people I mentored in my career. That was extremely rewarding work, they were all precious, and I have enjoyed watching each one of them in their careers. There are too many to name here, but several went on to earn big roles at big firms. Others decided to lead a more chill career and that is cool too.
20. And, of course, all the wonderful people who mentored me including the super smart Marianne Allison, Claire Lematta and Pam Edstrom (RIP), then at Waggener Edstrom, now called WE. All three went on to have impressive careers. Also, Jan Edmondson, the then Chairman of DDB Worldwide Communications in Seattle, who often took me to lunch to discuss business and kept me laughing at myself. I can still hear some of his comments in my head.
21. The huge bouquet of “get-well” flowers that my then client, the Microsoft Office team, sent to me when I was once out sick with something mysterious for two weeks. That was so appreciated (and motivating).
22. Speaking of huge bouquets of flowers, I remember being at a client’s offices for an all-day meeting and receiving a massive bouquet of flowers from the man I was dating who knew I would be there. We all had a hardy laugh and my then boss at DDB Worldwide Communications, Lambert Jemley, with a big, amused smile on his face, put the flowers in the middle of the lunch table and drilled me on the “new guy” in front of everyone.
23. The countless times I learned from all the highly intelligent CEOs I have worked with over the years. I not only learned about their companies and industries from them, but also about business and leadership. Standouts include Dave Coleman of PickNik Robotics, Greg Davis of Overwatch Imaging, Ben Elowitz formerly with Wetpaint (acquired), Ben Waters of WiBotic, Glenn Hasen then with QL2, Tom Hull then with PictureIQ, Tom Button of Mobilize.net, Lance Morgan of Marine Conservation Institute and Jon Herlocker of Tignis. Rob Grady, while not a CEO, easily could be and now is a general manager at Amazon.
24. The many clients who came back to hire me again to work on their business, or on a new endeavor of theirs. I counted at least 17 of you, several who came back multiple times. Thank you for your trust in me.
25. Launching my other company OurPlanet365 to much attention in February 2020, and then the pandemic started. I will try to revive it at some point. Stay tuned on that one.
As I re-read all these, I am struck by how so many of them have to do with people and their kindness. That is what I will remember as I go on in life. Yes, we can all do kick-ass work together and generate great results, and we have! But it is the human connection, treating people with dignity, respect and inclusivity that will stick with me for many years.
