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I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Upstate New York. Although nobody ever said this to me directly, it was just sort of in the atmosphere that if you were good in math and science, then that’s what you would do. Math and science were real. Those other things—history and literature and writing and what not—weren’t. Or at least they weren’t the kinds of things that real men busied themselves with. (And before you send me testy emails, remember: this was the ‘50s and ‘60s.)
I was good in math and science, so I got a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace/Mechanical engineering (from Notre Dame) and a master’s in the same field (from Cornell). All the while, though, I knew in my heart of hearts that what I really wanted to be was a writer. But having spent so much time in school, I figured I should give engineering a try.
Which I did. For three years. Which proved that I was right: I wasn’t cut out to be an engineer.
I was 26 and unattached. So I quit to try my hand as a freelance writer. But when I realized I couldn’t pay the rent doing that, I took a job at Honeywell that combined my technical aptitude with some reasonable writing chops. At Honeywell, I was basically a Swiss Army Knife of a writer. Product descriptions. Marketing brochures. Executive speeches. You name it, I wrote it.
It was gratifying work in that I was good at it, and I made a steady paycheck. Most important of all, though, is the fact that it’s where I met the woman who would become my wife, more about her below.
It was after leaving Honeywell and going to work for GenRad that I saw a writing/marketing opportunity in the world of Total Quality Management, or TQM. One of the basic tenets of TQM is that “Quality is everybody’s job, not just the job of the Quality Department.” But the writings about TQM tended to be 540-page tomes, filled with abstruse discussions of statistical process control—in other words, not the sort of thing that felt like “everybody’s job.”.
So I wrote a very short book about TQM that was aimed at “everybody.” I was amazed that I found an agent, even more amazed that he found a publisher, and absolutely gobsmacked that the book sold like crazy—which is how I got ushered (“rudely shoved” would actually be more like it) into the world of management consulting. I spent the first several years consulting in the field of TQM, then in the area of Customer Focus, then on to Creating Customer Value, then Employee Engagement, then to a more general focus on Leadership Development.
I am now retired and spend my time writing things of more general interest, usually about sports, or a book or movie or TV review here and there. I also play a lot of golf. Unfortunately, these days I tend to play a lot of golf within a given round, about which all I can say is: Sigh.
It's been an interesting and gratifying career, and none of it would have been possible without the love and support of my wife, Gail. Because while I was on the road, slaying those consulting dragons, she was managing the household and raising our two children. Sad to say, Gail passed away in December of 2020, not long after our 40th wedding anniversary. But she left me her two greatest gifts: our daughter Joanna, who lives just over the New Hampshire border with her husband Bob, and our son Mike, who lives in New York City, which is not all that far from my home in suburban Boston, with his wife Kari and their two young sons(which is to say my two grandsons).
I dedicated my first book to Gail. My new book, which will be my last business book, is also dedicated to Gail.
Why is it my last business book? Because I have nothing left to say about business.
Why is it again dedicated to Gail? Because it could be no other way.
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