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May 16, 2008
Half Way There
Thirty years ago, on a Monday morning, I began my career at Edelman, working as an account executive in the Chicago office. I had finished classes at business school on the Friday, counting on a long vacation with a much sought after young woman through the capitals of Europe. I was informed by my father, Dan, that the firm had won the commodity futures company, ContiCommodity Services, and that I was the best qualified person to work on the business. Therefore, I was to start immediately. You can imagine the phone conversation with the jilted fellow traveler. So much for the cushy job at a family business! My father had an offer in 1978 to be acquired by DDB Advertising but preferred to carry on as an independent on the premise that I would try the business for a year. So here I am at age 53, half way through my Edelman career-- my dad is 87 and works every day-- prepared to tell a few stories.
Funniest Client Event—The Lubbock Cotton Conference for ContiCommodity where I learned about donkey baseball, where each player is riding a jackass, and each play takes five minutes. They also held the chicken fly-off, where two fowl are colored in food dye (I bet on Wild Blue Yonder, the blue entry), thrown off the roof of a barn and the one flying the farthest wins. I also met up with Rocky Mountain Oysters, the chewiest, least delectable food item ever ingested; only my honeymoon dinner of the local specialty in Southern China, civet comes close.
Most Inspiring Pitch—In our bid for Fuji Photo Film’s 1984 Summer Olympics program we were joined by featured Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss, who we thought might be able to capture American athletes training for and competing in the Los Angeles Games. While Jody Quinn and I nervously waited for one of the Fuji executives to trip over the power cord for our projector in our small conference room in New York office, Walter charmed the clients and helped us win our breakthrough assignment, “Shooting for the Gold.“
Faith intervened—Our pitch to the coalition of long distance telecom companies, interrupted by a snow alert in Washington, DC, which required all buildings to close but enabling us to come back the following week with a much improved proposal; Leslie Dach and I agreed it was divine intervention.
You Get What You Pay For —With the Fuji win, we had to expand the NY office. I hired a friend’s small construction firm to help us go into the space next door. Sitting at my typewriter at 6 pm on a Friday night, I heard and then saw a sledgehammer come through the wall over my desk. Shrieking at the top of my voice in English then Spanish to no avail, I ran outside to learn that the construction crew spoke Greek. So the wall came down and we moved the furniture by ourselves.
Client Most in Denial—Walking across the hazardous waste dump at Love Canal in upstate New York with my client from Hooker Chemical, with boarded-up homes around the perimeter closed by order of the Environmental Protection Agency, he said, “It doesn’t really smell that much, does it?” This was topped by my mother’s comment that night, “You wore your galoshes when you were on the site; we don’t want mutated grandchildren.”
Proudest Achievement—Working with NY office colleagues Russell Dubner, Loretta Ucelli and Justin Blake to create LowerManhattan.info, a web site for the City of New York on the rebuilding of Ground Zero and surrounding area, within two months, so that it was ready for the first anniversary of 9/11. This web site eventually became an important destination and the primary source of facts for more than a million visitors in the first year, and 8 million in the past six.
Oddest Meeting—Michael Morley and I were summoned to a Midtown Manhattan hotel for a sit-down with two gentlemen in trench coats. They asked us about Edelman, in particular our global experience. We were convinced as we left that they were from the CIA or FBI. It turns out they were respectively chief marketing officer and global communications director for Ernst & Whinney, which intended to merge with Arthur Young to create Ernst & Young, the largest professional services firm in the world. We worked in secret quarters for six weeks, making excuses to fellow staffers and spouses alike, to prepare this announcement.
I have led a charmed life. I was fortunate to have several mentors, including the late John Scanlon who taught me so much about crisis management; Dick Aurelio who turned me into an adequate writer; Michael Morley who convinced me that there was a big world to consider; the late Michael Deaver who informed my executive style and commitment to excellence; Leslie Dach who taught me how to put doing good for society at the center of a corporation’s purpose; my partner from the beginning, Pam Talbot who showed me how a powerful creative idea could change everything; and my father, Dan Edelman, who gave me the chance to run the New York office well before my time and stood by me as I learned to be regional manager of Europe, then CEO of the company. I am so grateful to our clients and to my colleagues who have made this possible. Now it is on to the next thirty years.
Posted by Edelman at May 16, 2008 10:53 AM |
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Comments
Richard, congratulations from Down Under on your 30th anniversary. I was pleased to read that Dan is still going in to the office every day at 87 - please convey my best wishes to him.
Posted by: Robyn Sefiani at May 18, 2008 7:39 AM
Congratulations on this important landmark in your career. I'm pretty sure that you feel as enthusiast and perceive as many if not more challenges than 30 years ago, because it reflects in the philosophy of the company today, reinventing, upgrading in order to gain competitive advantage and benefit our clients. Never knew that you spoke Spanish, hopefully you can come by the Mexico City office sometime and practice it!!! Regards, Julio.
Posted by: Julio Gil at May 18, 2008 5:01 PM
It's interesting that the first post I've read on your blog would be this highlighting career touchpoints. I'm the same age and remember driving though Love Canal (I'm from Rochester) and seeing first hand what a mess it was-definitely smelled bad.
Congrats!
Posted by: Martin Edic at May 19, 2008 4:22 PM
What great stories, Richard! Thanks for sharing them. Congratulations on your 30th anniversary. Know that you have many admirers inside the company and out who can't wait to tell our own stories! (We have some on you, you know!)
Posted by: Marilynn Mobley at May 20, 2008 12:59 PM
Richard, many congratulations, and I'm glad you appreciated the inspirational figures you met during your career. Who knows what the next 30 years will hold, and how much of it will be for the good of us all...
Posted by: Ellee at June 16, 2008 3:47 PM