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Health & Fitness

Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself - PART XXIII

Raising our first child and accepting the first major career opportunity with a path to the future.

When we brought Steven home from Freehold Area Hospital, my mother-in-law felt the need to play the role of baby nurse for his first 24-hours at 79 Barkalow Avenue.  Complete with rubber gloves, hairnet and surgical mask, Bea Evin took command of sterilization and childcare.  There was no way she would relinquish such a critical responsibility to such inexperienced novices as Betsy and me.

Though she meant well, the first 24-hours of Betsy's mother's home-based pediatric ward ended only after about six hours of tense, emotional outbursts ("meltdowns" as they later became known as) and baby care taken to extremes.  Betsy, not so politely, asked her mother to leave the parenting to the parents and sent her on her way.  After all, we needed to stand on our own sometime.  It was actually easier to do without all of the drama associated with my mother-in-law's sergeant-of-arms approach.

Things went along very nicely with Betsy and I back in charge.  It doesn't really take very long to figure out the needs of a baby.  You know they have to eat, drink, sleep and go potty.  You learn that crying is their way of alerting you to bring the bottle or the diaper.  Think of them as a bad employer, who doesn't care how long, hard and dirty the job is or what time it needs to be done.

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In any case, Steven didn't suffer having Betsy and me as parents.  We were on top of everything and he got good care right from the start.

For the next several months I stayed with LRB Associates and actually made a few job placements.  Since this agency dealt with higher level jobs than Forrest Personnel in NYC, the fees were much higher and you could easily make a six figure income if you stayed with this level of headhunting.

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My thoughts were this. I loved recruiting and LRB offered me that.  The owner and my fellow employees were great.  The job allowed me to put recruiting on my resume to impress corporate human resources possibly interested in hiring me (unlike these days, back then corporate personnel staff actually frowned on those with agency recruiting experience). And, there was the possibility that I might place myself in a good paying job by hearing about it first, as a recruiter.

Even though I was working at LRB, I continued to send out resumes for interesting jobs that paid a salary.  With a new baby and growing expenses, Betsy and I wanted the peace of mind that comes with a weekly paycheck.  And, I wanted to use my college education to build a career in corporate America,

In the spring of 1982, I received a call from the director of a trade school in Monmouth County called Union Technical Institute (UTI).  They were located in a large office building in downtown Eatontown.  The school was seeking a director of placement; someone to help get their graduates jobs in the fields they studied. It sounded like a great job and I wet for an interview.

It wasn't too long before I got a job offer. It was for $15,000.  Betsy and I thought we hit the lottery.  It was more than I made at Manes Textiles, without a daily commute to the city.  We were thrilled.

Union Tech turned out to be the first major career step for me on my way to greater opportunity.  Alice Lavigne, the director and still a dear mentor to me, always said that the job would be a "stepping stone" to bigger and greater things and she was right.  So, what made this job so key?

Well, the job was in Monmouth County - my home base, where my family and I knew many locally prominent people.  The passion and energy I developed while working for Forrest Personnel in the City was very appreciated and respected by my bosses and by the students I  served.  And, I knew how to find jobs and fill them.

When I started the job in May of 1982, there was a major recession going on in America.  This was great for school enrollments, but bad for employment opportunities for entry-level tech students.  This did not deter me or my efforts. I taught my students job search skills in a formal class; took them to job fairs all over the state; brought in top guest speakers on job search, dress for success and motivational training; and got myself heavily involved with economic development councils, chambers of commerce, college associations and the state labor department.  I made the school and myself pretty well known.

I was also not afraid to be persistent in getting huge companies like Xerox, IBM and ADP to hire my students.  As a board member of the NJ College Personnel Association, I was able to host their meetings at Union Tech, after we moved to a larger and more impressive building on Green Grove Road in Neptune (NJ). That brought top administrators from Rutgers, Monmouth College, NJIT, Trenton State and other prestigious schools from around the state to our facilities.  Little UTI, was hobnobbing with 4 year colleges and the local media was reporting about it.

While at UTI, I managed to convert these relationships to major job fairs that were open to the public and advertised as a consortium of major colleges that included Union Technical Institute, the only tech school on the list.  The events drew 50-70 major employers and the school benefited from high quality job placements and a great reputation from being associated with these other great four year colleges and universities.

My involvements also lead to Monmouth College and even my Alma Mater, Syracuse University striking credit transfer agreements with Union Tech. The students didn't get many credits, but they got some. And, the publicity was terrific for the school.

Word travelled fast and the school and I received written commendations from both New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean and President Ronald Reagan, who had just gone to a tech school in Pittsburgh and helped one of its unemployed students get a job at a local Radio Shack.  The President wrote that he was impressed with the "high placement rate (over 90%) that UTI accomplished. And that "records were meant to be broken." 

I was and remain very proud of what I accomplished for my students.  I still hear from many, today - long after the school closed in the early 90's.  Many are at the top of major corporations around the country.

The accreditation arm of Union Tech was NATTS.  National Association of Trade and Technical Schools in Washington, DC.  Shortly after the President wrote the school, they invited me to be their keynote speaker at their annual convention in San Antonio, Texas.  Betsy and I had an all expenses paid trip to that area and I spoke before 500 trade school administrators on our school's success. Yes, I loved my job at Union Tech and  - at times - still miss it very much. I was there five years, until one of my employer clients - Frequency Engineering Laboratories (Part of then Fortune 500, Harvard Industries) offered me the position of Employment Supervisor. 

UTI had already been sold to some disreputable people, who drove it into the ground.  The FBI eventually raided the place and shut it down for doctoring entry test scores (the students would flunk out and the school would retain federal loan monies).  Very sad.  These people came to the school under the guise of marketing consultants and ended up bankrupting my boss and previous owner Larry K.  Larry was a young controller, who bought the school from his bosses, a north Jersey CATV company and ran it honestly and with respect for education.

I understand that as the FBI agents charged in, the new owners were caught in the back of the building shredding files.  This was long after I was gone and I only learned of the facts from some teachers I hired away to work with me at FEL.  Wherever I work, I always try to bring good people along with me - as you will see.Before leaving Union Tech, we welcomed another child into the world, Sean Michael LeVine...to be continued...

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