Engaging the past and uncovering the present via LinkedIn

Early this morning, I logged into my LinkedIn account to find an invitation to be connected from a stranger from Pakistan.

For now, my rule is not to accept an invitation from a person I haven't done business with or who, logic suggests, I am highly unlikely to ever do business with in the future. I then saw a photo pop up on my screen of 'People You May Know", and it brought back a flood of positive memories I had at my very first corporate job after grad school. It got me thinking about some of the people at that company, and what had become of them. I typed the letters G, I, L....and upon fully spelling his first and last name learned he was no longer a salesman but now a systems engineer at Microsoft. Then I thought of another colleague, Charles Fedorko. He was a satellite network manager from the east coast who had a certain charm and sparkle about him. He ended up courting and marrying a woman at the company who was a former broadcast TV journalist in Los Angeles who had shifted careers to come to Hughes Communications. I wondered what had become of Charlie. I typed out C-H-A-R-L-I-E-F-E-D-O-R-K-O. A couple of  profiles came up, but none of them were the Charlie Fedorko I knew. The ones that came up were far too young in age. So I typed C-H-A-R-L-E-S-F-E-D-O-R-K-O. Again, a couple of profiles came up, but they weren't the Charles Fedorko I had worked with in El Segundo. I opened up another browser on my laptop and went to trusted Google to type in 'Charles Fedorko, Los Angeles'. Up popped a link to an L.A. Times article written on July 21, 1994.

The headline read: 'Golden State Freeway Tragedies Investigated : Truck: Why pipes fell off the trailer still isn't known. Victim was from Santa Clarita area.'

Oh, no, I thought. My god, no.

Then the next two paragraphs verified what I didn't want to be true.

"Charles Fedorko left work a little early Tuesday afternoon to get home to his teen-age son, who he had been raising on his own for the last two years. Through no fault of his own, Fedorko's anxiousness to get home cost him his life. Fedorko, 46, was traveling north on the Golden State Freeway near its intersection with the Foothill and Antelope Valley freeways at about 4:15 p.m. At the exact moment he drove under an entrance ramp, a load of 30-foot iron pipes, each weighing about a ton, fell from a big-rig truck on the ramp, according to police."

I continued to read about what happened that day, but also about Charlie's life.

Fedorko lived in the Stevenson Ranch area with his 14-year-old son, David. He was vice president and general manager for the western region of Keystone Communications, a Salt Lake City-based company providing satellite uplinks for television broadcasters, with an L.A. office on Sunset Boulevard. Fedorko had formerly been a radio broadcaster, according to a statement released by Keystone, before moving on to television positions. He had worked as a satellite system engineer for NBC and a satellite operations manager for Hughes Communications.

"He was a very elegant, successful man," said Priscilla Wright, who used to baby-sit David Fedorko while his father was traveling for business.

Fedorko loved airplanes, according to friends, and he collected gauges and other aviation equipment.

"The officer at the scene said he at first thought he was a pilot because of all the equipment in his car," said Rob Schwenker, a classmate of Fedorko's son.

I remember Charlie because he was so versatile and friendly. He had a great sense of humor, was outgoing. Always issuing a hello followed by an arm around your shoulder.

He courted a former broadcast TV journalist who had tired of that business and had joined Hughes Communications. Charlie was smitten, and charmed her quickly, and they were soon after married. 

Charlie had said he thought this time, he'd get marriage right. He had been married before, had a couple of kids.

According to the article, Charlie was raising his 14-year-old son David alone for two years. At the end of the article, the reporter wrote that David's mother would be coming from Florda to see her son.

Why did the marriage dissolve?

What has happened to Charlie's son since that dreaded day in 1994?

And what about the man, Harold Haines, of Aumsville, Ore., who, back in 1994, was 56 years old, driving the truck that carried those lethal pipes? Did the CHP end up charging him or determining it was an accident that could not be prevented?

I started my early morning logging in to LinkedIn to get focused on business-related matters, only to allow my non-business-related curiosity steer me to an entirely different place.

LinkedIn isn't just a tool for business networking. For those of us with a curiosity that won't quit, LinkedIn can help you re-discover people you once worked with...and a whole lot more. 

Say 'When'

Many of us have memories being kids seated at a snack table in kindergarten and a teacher, filling apple juice into each of our dixie cups, provided us the power to say 'when'. 
I posit many  -- not all of us -- because some of us simply have poor memories...and worse. Consider Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, and Tennessee Volunteers womens basketball coach Pat Summitt, who last year was diagnosed with having symptoms of dementia.

In Gabby Giffords case, she concluded yesterday that she needed more time to focus on her recovery, and that her constituents would be best served if she resigned from her job as Congresswoman. In Summitt's case, in 2011, she went public with her dementia diagnosis and decided to continue serving as head womens basketball coach at the University of Tennessee.

Being an effective representative in Congress takes considerable intellect and endurance. I support Giffords decision to resign her position and focus on her recovery. Being an effective basketball coach at the NCAA Division I level also takes considrable intellect and endurance. Had Pat Summitt decided to retire, I would have supported her decision. But Summitt decided that the final buzzer had not sounded for her. 

Some have argued that Pat Summitt should not be a head basketball coach -- that those who are head of anything need to be at the top of their game. Still, there are others that argue that the players on Summitt's team might be better people for learning about empathy and patience -- that a leader can still be effective at leading despite being be fallable and vulnerable, especially when supported by staff who can correct their misactions.

What fascinates me in both the cases of Giffords and Summitt, is that there were no 'powers that be' that forced them out. Gifford and Summitt each demonstrated that when you have accomplished much in the past, in some cases in our society, you earn the right to control your own destiny, health issue or not.

Scary? Inspiring? Perhaps both.

Lamar Odom Returns to a Standing Ovation at Staples

What you see as a child affects your perceptions as a man.

The continuity of the Lakers rubbed off on me as a kid. Growing up in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, my heroes – year after year – were Gail Goodrich, Jerry West, Jimmy McMillian, Happy Hairston, and Wilt Chamberlain. They competed to their utmost abilities, and whether they won or lost, I watched them play their hearts out in playoff games against the Knicks, Celtics, and Bucks. Eventually they attained the ultimate prize – world champions in 1972.

Fast-forward to just before the start of the NBA season in December. Lamar Odom -- after contributing to Lakers team championship rings in 2009 and 2010 and being voted the best sixth man of the NBA during the season that the Lakers would lose in the playoffs to the Dallas Mavericks -- learned from the media that the Lakers were trying to trade him to obtain star point guard Chris Paul. The trade didn't go through, but Odom expressed bewilderment that he was on the chopping block and not informed by Lakers of the team’s intentions. Odom subsequently asked for a trade and soon thereafter the Lakers sent Odom to Dallas. 

This evening, Odom returned to Los Angeles as a Maverick to play against the Lakers. In a Los Angeles Times interview this morning, Odom, who is a power forward with a soft side to him, lamented, “The day you get traded, you walk into the team’s office and you see people walking around and they’re acting like your name is Lazarus instead of Lamar. You’re looking to get an insight into somebody and they’re eating food and stuffing their mouth and saying hello and goodbye at the same time. They won’t even look you in your eye. There was a lot of things that some people in business would consider cowardly.”

Lakers Center Pao Gasol, who himself was to be sent to Houston as part of the complex deal to get Paul, until NBA Commissioner David Stern nixed the deal,  lauded Odom: “(Lamar) is an unselfish, versatile guy that sacrifices himself for the benefit of the team always, and that’s the kind of player you like to have on your side.”

Yes, sometimes difficult decisions are brought on by tough economic times or business dynamics that require changes be made within an organization. But there are ways to ease the blows and make an individual feel that they were, and always will be, appreciated. While many will continue to argue if trading Lamar Odom helps or hinders the Los Angeles Lakers, few can argue that the way Odom was treated by the Lakers when they attempted to trade him for Chris Paul lacked dignity and respect for an athlete who was committed to the city in which he performed well.

When Odom was sent to Dallas, former Lakers coach Phil Jackson called Odom to say, “Get yourself together and defend your name.” 

Sputtering in his first season with the Mavericks, Odom is trying to heed Jackson’s advice. 

But it's difficult for Odom. Poking at his food while talking with the Los Angeles Times reporter as part of a breakfast interview, Odom showed an uneasiness with how he was treated by the Lakers management.

Richard Funess, a PR executive I once worked for when he headed up the Manning, Selvage & Lee office in Los Angeles, now a senior executive at Finn Partners,  heeds the words of Maya Angelou.  “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Clearly, the Lakers made Odom feel like dog excrement. 

While Lamar Odom makes millions of dollars and most American workers will never make a six-figure annual salary, I still feel for the individual – no matter the amount of their paycheck – who gives their all and is treated, in the end, like garbage.

Fortunately, for Odom, when he entered tonight's game between the Mavericks and the Lakers at Staples Center, he received a standing ovation from fans, while the television cameras fixed upon an applauding Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak, who was responsible for the Odom trade.

The Lakers’ Odom transaction was not the first time a loyal team member was shafted by a professional sports organization. In 1977, Ross Porter began his first of 28 seasons broadcasting for the Los Angeles Dodgers. On June 3, 1989, Porter set a record when he broadcast 22 straight innings without any replacement in a Dodger game against the Houston Astros at the Astrodome. The broadcast was heard on KABC Radio and was simulcast through KTTV. Following the 2004 season, after denying Porter a contract extension, the Dodgers hired former Yankee announcer Charley Steiner. Vin Scully – Porter’s longtime broadcast partner – did not resign in protest. But four months after Porter’s final inning with the Dodgers, Porter was inducted into the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Hall of Fame, and at the luncheon honoring him, Scully bowed his head slightly, and said, “Ross, I have not had this feeling since Jerry (Doggett) left us in 1997.”

Doggett died in 1997, and subsequently the Dodgers under the new owner at the time in 2004 -- the now infamous Frank McCord -- killed Ross Porter’s distinguished career by not renewing his contract. 

Could Vin Scully have saved his broadcast partner Ross Porter? Similarly, could the superstar that makes the Los Angeles Lakers franchise, Kobe Bryant, have stopped Lamar Odom from being traded? What did Scully and Bryant know about Porter and Odom, respectively, and when did they know it? 

Would protesting against how their colleagues were treated really have been the equivalent of occupational suicide? Could either Scully or Bryant – men whose finances are a-ok without either having to make a single more dollar -- have done more to stop their bosses from dismissing a colleague? At what point, when you see something distasteful occur in the workplace, is it imperative to speak up or even quit?