It’s been a blast
I find all of this fascinating, including the fact that I’ve spent the last decade chronicling all of the action. This is not what I imagined I would be doing at this point of my life. I wanted to be a sportswriter. But, as the celebrated American author John Steinbeck once said, “A journey is like a marriage—the certain way to be wrong is to think you can control it.” Said another way, life takes you down the path, not the other way around.
While I’m still not 100% sure just how I ended up spending 10 years of my life working in this industry, I am completely certain that it has been the most rewarding decade of my career. Ours is a vitally important industry, and the organizations and people who work within it are doing vitally important work. Have no doubts about that—the lives of citizens and first responders are being saved on a daily basis because of the work this industry does. If you are reading this column, you are making a difference, and you should feel great about that.
There are numerous people who have befriended me over the past 10 years, but I’m not going to try to list them here—there are just too many. Also, I’m afraid that I would inadvertently omit a few, and I would feel terrible about that.
That said, I do need to make one acknowledgement. Just as D’Artagnan had Athos, Porthos and Aramis, I have had my own Three Musketeers in Donny Jackson, Dennis Hegg and Alan Tilles. All have been great colleagues and even better friends.
I don’t know yet where the next adventure will take me, but I am hoping that it will be somewhere within this wonderful industry. Until we meet again, Godspeed.
P.S. If you would like to keep in touch, you can find me on LinkedIn. Ciao.