Freedom is Knowledge
Testimonial
The SEA Program Graduation
Morristown, New Jersey
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On July 19, 1996, I was downsized from an international company after 19 years of service in the electronics industry. The HR Department thought well of my years employed at their facility and outplaced me to one of the largest outplacement agencies in the world.
There I reviewed my strengths and weakness, studied how to represent myself in a new job market and learned that I was not alone in this involuntary career change. But several months later and after contacting many job recruiters and replying to over 60 open positions, I began to shudder. Here I am over 50, I thought, paying on a large mortgage and still trying to complete my task of raising four teenagers living at home. Not only did I not have a job, I didn't even have an interview under my belt. The reality set in that being thrust into a new job market and being over 50 were two ships that should never cross in the night. My wife and I began to fix up our home and make ready to put it up for sale to protect our hard-earned equity.
Then through one of my contacts at the outplacement agency, I was given a name to call for job retraining.
"Have you heard about the SEA Program?" I was asked.
No, I hadn't, but I suddenly felt the tug of hope again. Referenced by my local employment office, I attended an orientation at a local community college where I submitted my application for acceptance into the SEA Program. A few weeks later, a fresh breeze hit my sagging sails as a letter arrived at my home saying that I had been approved to participate in the new Self-employment Assistance Program called SEA.
On December 2, 1996, at 9 a.m., I started a journey with many other people who had also been cast adrift in this unkind labor market. They all sit here today wiser and better prepared for tomorrow's challenges.
At the time, I met Bruce Perkins from Community College of Morris (CCM) and Jim Smith from the Skylands Small Business Development Center (Skylands SBDC). "Evaluate your ideas, anticipate cash flow, write an effective business plan and accomplish what will seem to be an endless list of tasks to start your own business," Jim proclaimed the first day of class.
Then we also met Peter Renzulli, (CPA), who knocked us off our feet. When I entered this program, I thought that a 1099 was a red-light special at K-Mart. And Peter said, "Protect that Corporate Shield. Don't mess around. Hold your corporate meetings and keep your records up to date."
After that, Mr. Herb Neal said that to have a great marketing strategy we must research the marketplace, write clever copy and most important of all "be nice, be nice and be nice!"
John Fitzpatrick told us about FCs, VCs, GMs and CGS . . . and said divide one into the other, and we would be on our way to building an effective business plan.
On December 11, 1996, at 4:30 in the afternoon my wife and I sat down at a local Friendly Restaurant. In the almost empty and quiet environment, I slammed a spoon down on the table and our annual meeting of our concept for developing a business idea began. Our lawyer had been correct. We were going to have a good time.
Then I started writing the business plan with John Fitzpatrick's recommended book, The Business Planning Guide by my side. In evaluating our available expertise, I took my strength in writing along with my wife's added ability of knowing perfect English and developed the idea of a resume-scrubbing service on the World Wide Web. And our online service would also help others who had lost their jobs or were in their fifties and found themselves downsized. It would also catch the feelings of teenagers caught in a parent's downsizing. And there would also be help on the site for those looking for jobs on the Internet, be they over fifty or new college graduates.
After many weeks of research on related Internet URL sites, reviewing resume books and writing a business plan along with writing all the copy that would be needed on all the pages of the planned web site, I realized that all that was left to do was to learn how to be a Webmaster. We didn't want to extend our finances to pay for someone else to put the pages on the web, and we wanted to avoid paying for future changes to the site.
Working with Microsoft's FrontPage Support and looking into books describing the workings of a web authoring tool, I found myself struggling--trying to build an address on Al Gore's new superhighway. It was the last part I had to complete to get the business running and to achieve the immediate goals of our business plan. As I tried to understand all the menu icons, templates and where to go to do what, I started to feel a huge despair coming over me. I said to myself in the early morning hours, "Lord, maybe all of this is just too much for anyone to handle," finally going to bed realizing I might be on the edge of failing.
But my consultant, Susan Goldstein from Skylands SBDC, had said it would not be easy to keep focused. And Peter Renzulli had taught me a difficult but valuable lesson a few weeks earlier that I was worth only as much as I believed I was worth.
The next day, I picked myself up again and gradually started to put the pieces together as there was only a few days left of the SEA Program. I am, therefore, happy to report to you that yesterday, at 12:30 p.m., the original URL Sheppdesign went online on the World Wide Web with reliable and researched information to help others searching for a job . . . and with a mission statement that Sheppdesign could help. This could have been a story of wishful thinking that I have been telling you but it is not. It is a real thanks to all those who taught and supported this great idea called the SEA Program.
But nine months later I had to shut down the site and take a job at the Home Depot, running out of money. After another six months went by, I found a job as a senior copywriter, my experience on the Web leading me to help the company double its hits and sales on the Web, providing me with a raise and a promotion.
A few years the company had to close its doors. On the positive side, the company gave me the opportunity while afterwards I received unemployment to apply for retraining, this time my being accepted at The Chubb Institute in Parsippany, New Jersey, where I received a certificate in Web design in May of 2002. While I never did find a job in Web design, the certificate did lead me into jobs doing contract training, my income from these positions more than paying for the Chubb experience.
Now retired with Sheppdesign having grown in a different direction, but still keeping its core in helping people search for employment, we decided we needed to create a new URL that would better reflect all the contemporary content that is now up on the site, and the reason for Freedom is Knowledge.
Our new goal is to encourage people to become educated in this more dangerous politically-correct world that we live in helping people defend their right to free speech through information.
As the SEA Program had helped me, so I now return the favor to you. So, as with me, while things may be looking down since you're here searching for a job, never give up and keep on trying. You never know where the path will lead.
While you're visiting our new URL, please click on the photo of the old Zenith Television. There you will find another give back by me, a brief history or color television along with details about all the viewing formats for the new HDTV, hoping the information might help save people thousands of dollars when thinking about investing in the new techology. Having worked for two Fortune 500 companies for over 20 years in the electronics industry, I bring a lot of information to the report of things you might not have known about televisions and HDTV specifically. Also embedded in the report, if interested, is an overview of my professional career. If may help you to understand you are not alone, as I too have had my ups and downs.
As one manger had so visually put it for me one day, speaking of life within a large corporation.
"There will be some days you're so high up on the roller coaster you can see the whole amusement park below you. While on others you'll feel like you're going through a tunnel, not sure where you're going to come out." - Webmaster
.Best regards and good luck, while in all honesty it will have little to do with your finding a job!
GK 2005