Janet DeArmond: demoted to the top of Customer Service Review

As filed – without edits – last week for today’s edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

IN 1999, JANET DeARMOND FOUNDED Customer Service Review Inc., a consulting firm specializing in customer service training in Wayne. Somewhere after spending 14 years as the company’s president, she left.

She’s back.

“There was an opportunity. I know the company. I love it. Probably the most engaging years of my career i spent here,” DeArmond said. “I know the clients. I know the business.  I really missed it.”

So after to attend to personal obligations, Liz French, the company’s current president and CEO, who was a vice president under Dearmond, brought her back into the fold.

“I’ve always stayed in contact with Liz. We both have a lot of respect for each other,” she said. “There are no strong egos here.”

Continue reading Janet DeArmond: demoted to the top of Customer Service Review

Goodbye Village: last day of classes of my college career

ANOTHER MILESTONE IN WHAT has been a full week.. with another day to go.

Last night I wrote the last school paper of, likely, my life.

Today is the last day of classes I will, perhaps, ever endure, assuming I don’t cave and go to back for a post-secondary education. That means, after a morning religion class, during which I will hand in the last school paper I’ll ever write, I will go to the Village of Arts and Humanities for the last time as part of an independent study.

That seems particularly strange because I have working with the high schoolers at the rec center off Germantown in Fairhill since January 2007, 16 months, three semesters, a summer, startling.

It’s a hell of class. We mostly work on media projects, filming, editing and more, but I’ve always been more into hanging out with active, young people. A real excuse to beat the hell up on 16-year-old Leon in basketball, as captured by Eugene Martin in the above photograph, at the Fairhill Park.

Now that is something I will most certainly miss. While I have gone there during the academic year and beyond, because I recently accepted a gig in Harrisburg that relationship will almost certainly slow.

George Washington made president 219 years ago today

ON THIS DAY, April 30, in 1789, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first President of the young United States of America. On the matter, Washington wrote James Madison the following:

As the first of every thing, in our situation will serve to establish a Precedent. It is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles.”

Peep how the inauguration was portrayed by the TV miniseries John Adams.

My post-graduate plans resolved… for now

Update: Read a review of my PLCA internship experience here.

IT WAS EARLY MARCH that I applied for a summer internship covering the Harrisburg, Pa. statehouse for a handful of urban dailies.

The internship is with the Pennsylvania Legislative Correspondents’ Association*, the oldest continuously operating journalism society in the country.

Well, after an interview in Harrisburg three weeks ago, I am happy to report that I was offered the gig on Monday and accepted it yesterday.

It is a 12-week program paying $500 a week. Interns spend two- or three-week rotations writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer (350,000 circulation) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (214,000 circulation) Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa., 109,000 circulation)) and The Patriot-News in Harrisburg.

It is an opportunity to cover and learn a great deal about the state government, while not facing the permanence I am not convinced I should undertake at my young age and in my relatively privileged state. So, come September I will be free to do some traveling, after proving to a potential employer that I was able to get a position right after graduation.

Indeed, this has been a week of big announcements, starting with my being named Temple’s commencement speaker here in the last week of my college career.

*Amended 9/6/08 4:32 P.M.

Our promise to Lacey: Lacey Gallagher remembered one year later

As filed – without edits – for last Friday’s edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

IT IS DISTURBING JUST HOW often you think you have heard the story.

How an 18-year-old finds a drive after the prom to be her last.

Last year Lacey Gallagher was a senior at Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls, at Lycoming Street and 10th near Hunting Park.

She died one year ago Monday. And it was hard. But, Lacey’s parents wanted to find good out of tragedy. People on the1600-block of East Eyre Street in Fishtown find good out of tragedy. They implored support for Pennsylvania House Bill No. 163, which would increase the phased licensing of young drivers in Pennsylvania. They raised awareness of the dangers of teenage drivers, particularly during late night drives in crowded cars on prom night.

The family wanted a more permanent way to keep Lacey’s memory alive, so they have launched a scholarship fund and are in the process of establishing a nonprofit in Lacey’s name.

“It is about going on our own and establishing our own name,” said Denise Gallagher, Lacey’s mother. “We want this to last.”

Continue reading Our promise to Lacey: Lacey Gallagher remembered one year later

Last week of my college career

CAN YOU BELIEVE that today marks the beginning of the last week of my college career.

The transition already has begun, considering today, Wednesday and Friday I will be reporting for the Philadelphia Business Journal. Still, there is no questioning this week will take on some added meaning.

On May 22, I will get to add my own face to stock photography of college graduates, hoozah.

I am also excited to add that, for that May 22 graduation for the Class of 2008 of Temple University, I have been named commencement speaker, a great honor, indeed.

After this week, lot’s of excitement will continue throughout May, all leading up to my final act as a Temple student. A strange feeling, to be sure.

Page one, double byline for Philadelphia Business Journal

I GOT A BIG THRILL on Friday.

I shared a byline with staff writer Peter Van Allen on the cover of the Philadelphia Business Journal. I didn’t realize it at first, but, indeed, it is the first time I have ever made it to Page One of any professional publication.

Pretty cool. I’ll see if I can get the entire story posted here as a clip, but, for now, I’ll link to to the story’s beginning, as PBJ is by subscription only.

The Pennsylvania primary that had Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama criss-crossing the state spotlighted Philadelphia in a rare way. Tourism officials sought to capitalize.

Whether it was the CNN truck parked in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art or the television satellite trucks lined up outside the National Constitution Center, Philadelphia was in the national eye. Both locals and visitors say the resulting free publicity will have a long-term benefit on the city and region.

Read more of Tourism measuring primary effects.

Former Inquirer columnist Steve Lopez in Philadelphia

EARLIER THIS WEEK Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez was on NPR’s Fresh Air, hear it here. The former popular Philadelphia Inquirer columnist was interviewed by Dave Davies, the venerable political writer for the Philadelphia Daily News who fills in for Terry Gross on Fresh Air from time to time.

He was promoting his newest book, The Soloist, which is already under production by DreamWorks as a movie of the same name to debut in November.

Lopez’s book chronicles his interaction with Nathaniel Ayers (depicted above), a homeless, former musical prodigy who began living in the streets after suffering the effects of schizophrenia. In the end, Lopez became an “unlikely advocate and friend” to Ayers, as the Los Angeles Times put it Monday.

The film casts Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez and Jamie Foxx as Ayers.

Lopez is in town today speaking to media, and tomorrow, in a free event at 2 p.m., Lopez will be at the Free Library. I’ll be there, so should you.

His first novel was the well-received Third and Indiana, set in Philadelphia, and he has also written In the Clear, Sunday Macaroni Club and had his Inquirer columns anthologized in Land of Giants. The last and the first I have read, amazed by his words, but I have also followed his L.A. Times columns and, I’ll say, he sometimes seems to be lacking the color that I think is safe to say few places provide like Philadelphia.

Maybe I’ll ask him about that tomorrow.

Photo courtesy of Obsessed with Film.

Chet Zoltak: the human resources feel eight hours closer to home

As filed – without edits – for today’s edition of the Philadelphia Business Journal.

Chet Zoltak has taken on another time committment after the workday and still can’t believe he’s at his Philadelpia home so much.

Zoltak, minted as president of the Philadelphia Human Resources Planning Society in November, spent 2005 commuting to a job as global leader of learning and talent development for the Timken Co., a friction management and power transmission manufacturer in Canton, Ohio.

“Two weeks there, one week here,” he said. “Sometimes I’d jump on a plane. Sometimes I’d drive… 7 1/2 hours.”

He took the position in late 2004 after operating his own consulting firm in the region, after being contacted by a headhunter.

“It was an opportunity to build a new function, which is something I love to do,” he said.

But midway through 2005 the commuting drained him and he and his wife wouldn’t move. So, it came as no surprise when, in January 2006, he took the position of corporate director of organization development for the AmerisourceBergen Corp., a pharmaceutical company in Valley Forge.

“I am developing key leaders,” he said. “It’s talent acquisition and management.”

Continue reading Chet Zoltak: the human resources feel eight hours closer to home