More Than a Bird's-Eye View
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MY mother was not a morning person, so I was the one who got my four younger siblings up and out in the morning. It was an incredible management task with four kids who didn't want to go to school when I lacked parental authority. One of my younger sisters said she knew that I was going to be a manager someday.
I wanted to study writing, so I decided to learn the bones of the English language by studying Latin and Greek at Trinity College in Hartford. I discovered that if you take the path less traveled, you have a lot less competition. I won several honors, but it was because I was competing almost in a field of one.
After graduating in 1974, I took a couple of years off to play in a band. It was fun, and an education. I learned that I didn't want to be a starving artist. I also had terrible stage fright, and I took speech and mime classes to overcome it.
In 1976, I enrolled in law school at the University of Virginia. After graduating, I joined a Wall Street law firm and focused on mergers and acquisitions for entrepreneurs and media companies. That led to working for Cablevision as assistant general counsel, which was like graduate school for innovators. Then I worked as a lawyer in radio and TV operations.
Business and finance seemed more fun than law, so I left for a job as managing director at Crest Communications Holdings, a private equity company that invested in and advised communications companies. Crest had invested in Orbimage, a subsidiary of Orbital Sciences and the precursor of GeoEye.
In 2001, Orbimage lost a satellite when a rocket failed at launch, and the rocket and satellite crashed into the Indian Ocean. The company stood to lose millions in potential business.
I had helped troubled companies for Crest before, so it decided I should travel to Orbimage headquarters in Virginia and hire a new C.E.O. It was to be a two-month assignment, but I couldn't find anyone who wanted the job. Though I had a home in New York, I ended up living at a Holiday Inn near Dulles International Airport for four years while I stepped into the position.
First Published February 19, 2012 12:01 am
