The Legend of Peter Thonis

Peter Thonis was my boss for 12 years, retiring 10 years ago. Late last week, a family friend called with the news that Peter had died.

As his son Chris posted on Facebook, Peter’s doctors told him he had 3 months to live, given his Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

 

Peter’s reaction? “You can’t base this stuff off of years-old data. And, as you know, I’m not the norm.”

 

That was 17 months ago. Peter was not the norm; he was transcendent.

 

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Here are 3 scenes of what it was like to work with Peter Thonis:

 

Scene 1

I try to call Peter on an important matter, and he answers with a whisper. “I can’t talk now,” he says. “I'm in a doctor's office.”

 

I say, “OK, I understand…”

 

He doesn’t seem to hear me, though, because he goes on to explain that he was about to undergo walk-in surgery to repair a stomach scar covering stitches that had never healed properly.

 

“But it's something I'd rather not talk about,” he says.

 

“OK,” I repeat. “I get it. We’ll talk some other time.”

 

Instead of silence, I hear Peter’s dramatic whisper on the other end of the line.

 

“It was a knife wound,” he says conspiratorially. “It was from a fight when I was young.”

 

Scene 2

I walk into Peter’s office and say, “I need to leave work early today. My mother-in-law is coming for dinner.”

 

Peter: “I know what that’s like. Go! GO NOW!”

 

I head toward the door.

 

“Wait!” he calls out, “Unless you want me to think of something for you to do right now, so you have to work late tonight.”

 

Scene 3

Peter arrives at my office door at 8 a.m. to say good morning. We were working in an office tower at 1095 Ave. of the Americas, the same building where my Dad used to work. He’s completely out of breath.

 

“I’m going hiking with my brother this week in the White Mountains. I’m walking up the 32 flights in the morning to get used to climbing again.”

 

Peter spies an unopened bottle on my desk. “Could I trouble you for some soda?” he asks.

 

“Of course,” I quickly untwist the top and hand it to him.

 

“I really hate to do this,” he says, taking a swig and immediately regaining his wind.

 

“Wait!” He waves the plastic bottle in front of him. “Is this diet Coke?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good!” he exclaims, hurrying off.

 

30 minutes later, I get a phone call from Peter.

 

“Was there an 8:30 meeting?” he asks.

 

“No, you canceled that last week.”

 

“Good, because I was on the 8:30 call, and no one was there.”

 

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These scenes do not portray Peter’s excellence in actually doing his job.

 

This is a photo of him with our friend and co-worker Valerie Vedda. The occasion was when Peter received the Communicator of the Year Award from IABC-NJ (International Association of Business Communicators) in 2006. Peter’s formal obituary outlines his many other career accomplishments, but here’s one real-life example of his work ethic:

 

On Veterans’ Day weekend 22 years ago, I was mildly annoyed during a day off to interrupt my leaf raking at my suburban home to return a message from Christine Nuzum of Dow Jones. It was about possible phone service problems. I logged in to work and discovered it was in light of the crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Queens. In the short time it took me to get back to Christine, I also discovered that she had reached out to Peter simultaneously, and he had already responded.

 

Peter had been hiking on a mountaintop in southern New Hampshire. The wind-chill factor approached minus 20 degrees, but he had stripped away three layers of protective clothing to get to his pager, find his cell phone, and dial her back without his gloves on.

 

When it came to Public Relations, he single-handedly prevented multiple media disasters over the years.

 

Here are 5 representative, if unorthodox, PR lessons I learned from Peter Thonis:

• Regarding crisis communications, the most effective operating philosophy can be summarized in one phrase: “Go ugly early.”
• Regarding leaks to the media, the advice is this: “A leak isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If it isn’t material, it may be just interesting.”
• “There’s a thin line between being a ‘thought leader’ and becoming a ‘poster boy.’”
• “You can’t say the word ‘jerk’ to the Daily News and not expect to be quoted.”
• Regarding a fallback PR position on just about anything… When in doubt, your standby sound bite should always be, “Bring it on.”

Peter was also able to make tough decisions with ridiculous ease. He once described this side of his management style. He said, “You know, Bob, you only have to shoot one person, and it will never happen again.”

 

By far, his best quote about PR came in the middle of an otherwise meandering, boring meeting. Out of nowhere, he suddenly said this:

 

“Our goal shouldn't be to find a better way to tell the same story. Our goal should be to find a better story to tell.”

 

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As for the person, here are 10 facts about Peter (never call him “Pete”) Thonis:

• He couldn’t say the word “surreptitious”
• His favorite finger food at a reception was pigs in a blanket
• At one time in his life, he was recruited by the CIA
• He allegedly had the ability to stuff an entire orange in his mouth
• He once sat at the bar at Kennedy’s (now closed) on West 57th Street and watched an entire baseball game (Peter was a huge sports fan) with Bill Murray -- but only because he was clever enough not to acknowledge who Bill Murray was
• He had a pathological hatred for the New England clam chowder as served in the Verizon Center cafeteria, fondly recalling how his Mom made chowder from fresh ingredients
• He once made a map for my family to follow that highlighted a week’s worth of activities on Cape Cod, adding the warning: “Avoid Hyannis”
• He could, and would, show you how to use a wristwatch as a compass
• He was an expert limerick writer
• Peter and I both, unbeknownst to each other at the time, took violin lessons in late middle age

In truth, that last point is one of the only things we had in common.

 

I could never match Peter’s strength or confidence… or empathy. I recall his big heart. I recall his comforting embrace of a tearful co-worker as we all stood in stunned silence from our panoramic 32nd-floor view of the burning World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

 

I recall his support at the funeral home in Totowa, NJ, and his patience and kindness to my family after my Dad died. Peter revealed that he was filled with anger that his own father had passed away in his 50s.

 

I also recall only one day in our 12 years together that he did not show up where I expected him. When I asked Valerie about it that day, thinking he was perhaps unreachable because he had lost his 7th… or 8th… or 9th Blackberry device, she confided that Peter had taken off in his car for New Hampshire in the pre-dawn hours to attend to a health emergency involving his best friend.

 

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By coincidence, I had lunch with Valerie and her husband earlier this month in New York City. She spoke fondly of visiting post-retirement Peter at his mountainside home (that, when described, seemed akin to the setting of “The Shining”).

 

Excuse all the movie references, but Peter was a bit of a film buff. I’ve had other bosses who loved movies… notably, earlier in my career, Tony Pappas.

 

I began writing this on November 10th, the 5th anniversary of Tony’s death. He was another larger-than-life boss who led media relations for New York Telephone (later NYNEX). I’ve likened Tony to Peter O’Toole’s swashbuckling character in the 1982 movie “My Favorite Year.”

 

I never thought I’d work for anyone like Tony again. Until I met Peter Thonis.

 

Both, foremost, shared a love of exquisite writing.

 

Both had great, though differing, tastes in movies. Tony liked foreign films and “The Godfather” franchise. Peter was more of a fan of “Igby Goes Down”-type films and had an irrational love of Godzilla movies.

 

One of Peter’s favorite movie scenes was from 1997’s “As Good As It Gets.” It’s when Jack Nicholson compliments Helen Hunt by saying, “You make me want to be a better man.”

 

That statement, that scene, resonated with Peter, who always strove to be better.

 

I’ve thought of this often these past few days. It’s inspiring.

 

I’ve also thought of a post-credit scene to give these words a fitting ending:

 

In 2012, Peter sent everyone on his Christmas list, including his Mom, packages from Wine Country with a note, “Enjoy every moment of the holidays.” But someone hacked into the order and changed the message to “Enjoy every f**k’n moment!”

 

Such simple, profound advice, no matter how it’s phrased. Who knows what the future holds for any of us?

 

I only know what Peter Thonis, the legend, would have to say about that:

 

Bring it on.

Moonlight in Chatham during a family visit inspired by Peter

20 Years Later, 9/11 Remembered

Empty Sky Memorial, Liberty State Park, NJ, 2020

I'm reposting this from last year, having again updated a Pinterest site of photos and stories recalling my former Verizon colleagues and their heroic response to 9/11. You can reach it at https://www.pinterest.com/bvar/verizons-response-to-911/.

Included is a booklet from 2005 about the history and recovery of 140 West Street, the old headquarters building that was severely damaged at Ground Zero... and from which workers snaked temporary cables from open windows to get the New York Stock Exchange up and running just days later, beginning our national recovery.

Here are links to a half dozen related personal posts on this site (from most recent to oldest):

• 9/11: A Lesson in Accountability
• Revisiting My 9/11 Diary Pages
• New Insights on Verizon's 9/11 Recovery Efforts
• A New Generation Runs to a Crisis
• 9/11 Memoirs of an Invisible Man
• How Long Until the Elmos Show Up at Ground Zero?

My friend, Fay Shapiro, also kindly published this and other posts from PR people on the CommPro.biz site earlier today.

I hope you can make sense of it all.

Even 20 years later, I can't.

About My Job: A Foundation Serving New Yorkers

Mother Cabrini statue on our office windowsill (photo: me 🙂)

Reprinted with permission: a message from Msgr. Gregory Mustaciuolo, CEO of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation

Today, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation announced a new round of more than 400 grants totaling $115 million for programs serving vulnerable New Yorkers to help address health gaps across our state.

These funds will go to community-based organizations, food banks, healthcare providers, nursing homes, schools, federally qualified health centers, and others that are on the front lines providing crucial services to New Yorkers in need: groups such as low-income individuals and families; older adults; youth and young adults; persons with special needs; immigrants and migrant workers; veterans; formerly incarcerated individuals; and young children, pregnant women, and new moms.

So many organizations demonstrated resilience, creativity, and flexibility over the past year. Our grants reflect a commitment to these essential nonprofits and providers, which are the bedrock of a healthy and equitable future in New York.

Our grants support a wide range of urgent health needs and social determinants of health across New York State. These grantees include organizations such as the Food Bank of NYC, which promotes food security for the ever-increasing number of hungry New Yorkers; the Immigrant Justice Corps, which supports access to legal counsel for low-income immigrants; Le Moyne College, which provides nursing school scholarships to students from disadvantaged backgrounds; and Veterans One-Stop Center of WNY, which bolsters veterans as they transition from military to civilian life.

Grantees will also address chronic racial healthcare disparities that have only been heightened since the onset of the pandemic in New York. These programs include a grant for the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health to conduct a New York City-wide community needs assessment of social determinants of health, as well as grants and scholarships to organizations such as Hunter College, Iroquois Healthcare Association, and Associated Medical Schools of New York to promote workforce development opportunities for underrepresented groups in the healthcare profession.

Alongside these grants, we are rolling out the Foundation’s first statewide strategic program, focused on improving dental health access and outcomes in some of New York’s most underserved communities. The $5 million in grants will purchase five new mobile dental vans statewide and subsidize the expansion of mobile van services in an additional program.

During this time of transition and recovery, the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation must seize the moment not only to meet urgent needs but address longstanding inequities.

Now is the time to lay the foundation for a healthier and more resilient New York.

Though we have seen a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel, especially with the introduction of vaccines, the pandemic has deepened longstanding disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. New York’s health and social services providers continue to need our unwavering support during this time of heightened community needs.

See a list of year-end 2020 Mother Cabrini Health Foundation Grantees.

See more details on our grantees here.

Hey, Google, Show Me the Odds of a Miracle

As February comes to a close, I’m still thinking of Google’s “Loretta” Super Bowl commercial, which has so far been viewed more than 61 million times on YouTube.

The ad was a discussion topic at a recent event sponsored by the New Jersey chapter of IABC (International Association of Business Communicators).

Newhouse’s chief marketing officer, Jason Blake, and Sandy Becker from Rutgers Business School delivered a great post-game review of the Super Bowl advertising winners and losers.

IABC NJ event in Montclair, Feb. 11

To Blake and Becker, Google’s Loretta ad “humanized tech better than anything in a long time.”

Those in the room nodded in agreement, and a few said the ad had moved them to tears.

Less than two weeks following the “Big Game,” Blake and Becker noted that this year’s ads, with few exceptions, hadn’t been as memorable or as entertaining as the half-time show. Many advertisers desperately attempted to cram celebrities into vignettes with confusing messaging.

Upon further review, I’ve discovered that not everyone felt the same as our IABC focus group. On the positive side, I was even more moved to learn that the ad is based on a true story.

On the negative side, tech guru Shelly Palmer called it “the most evil advertisement” he’d ever seen because Google doesn’t disclose that it uses the information provided by the widower in the ad -- and by all of us in real life -- simply for marketing purposes.

Similarly, Joelle Renstrom wrote about “The Sinister Realities of Google's Tear-Jerking Super Bowl Commercial” on Slate. And then there’s this parody ad produced by Gardiner Bryant, with its coda that calls out Google’s “creepiness”:



It seems the world is divided in two: many who accept the ad at face value, and many -- like my wife -- who wonder about the implications and unintended consequences of letting technology supplant real human interaction.

I think, after all, that I still share the view of my friends at IABC.

I don't think the ad shows the extent of Google’s power; I think it shows Google’s limits.

Something that happened last Sunday explains why, and I wanted to post about it tonight because I fear my reasoning is as ephemeral as the waning hours of Leap Day.

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Last Sunday, family and friends celebrated the 90th birthday of my uncle, a retired priest.

As my wife and I drove to the party at Enzo’s Ristorante & Pizzeria in Budd Lake, NJ, I thought a lot about Fr. Julian’s life.

Not to “Loretta” him here, but I remember a conversation I had with my grandmother -- who would have been 97 at the time -- one summer, years ago.

As we sat on the front porch of her (now Julian’s) house in Budd Lake, Nonna told the story of the days following Fr. Julian’s birth: he had been so sick that the best doctors were convinced he would die within days.

Nonna said she prayed to Mary to keep him alive. She vowed to always take care of Julian, no matter what... believing, even if he survived, he would require 24/7 care for the rest of his life. She promised God that if only Julian would live she would never ask for anything else for herself ever again.

She never did. She never had to. She considered herself the luckiest mother in the world.

Julian grew to be the strongest of the Varettoni boys (and both his brothers were athletes and Navy officers). He always took care of Nonna, just as he has helped countless others throughout his life.

The miracle of Fr. Julian’s 90th birthday party is something Google could never have predicted. He, like Loretta and her husband, have had wonderful lives.

They, like the rest of us, are also among the rabble who share general similarities that can exploited for commercial gain. We’re the same rabble who do all the working and playing and living and dying -- but we all have individual stories that Google can’t get its fingers on.

Our lives are not algorithms. Love and death are unfathomable mysteries. We’re all miracles in our own way.

Not even Google can commoditize our souls.

Good at Twitter vs. Bad at Twitter

Yesterday Father John Burns, a priest from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee who at one time studied business marketing at the University of Notre Dame, visited the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem.

In anticipation, he tweeted this:

"I don't tweet much. Not even sure this is how to use Twitter. But I will pray there for every single person who sees this tweet."

This is a remarkably good use of Twitter. It's personal; it's authentic; it was meaningful to me, enjoying Sunday morning coffee, 5,700 miles away.

We could all use someone to say a prayer for us.

So I'd say Fr. Burns is demonstrably good at Twitter -- and his tweet received over 6,000 likes.

Contrast this with actor Dave Vescio, a verified Twitter user who tweeted the following a week earlier:

This content is very clever. In fact, Vescio's tweet received over 1 million likes.

The problem is, Vescio didn't actually write this.

Instead, he repeated a tweet, word for word, that has been kicking around Twitter and other social media for several years. He added no new content and didn't credit any source. He copied it whole, then presented it as an original thought.

In Vescio's defense, perhaps this tweet is such a well-worn meme that Vescio was being ironic. He simply passed this along as an inside joke.

I don't think so, though. Irony without context isn't really irony. It's puzzling at best, and stealing at worst.

So I'd say that, despite his tweet receiving over 1 million likes, Dave Vescio is bad at Twitter.

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Someone who's good at Twitter?

New York Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard.

Noah can be clever and ironic with the best of them. His ongoing feud with my favorite mascot, Mr. Met, is hilarious.

Just the other day Noah (he's so authentic that I feel like I know him and can call him by his first name) proved this with a tweet that was an actual inside-baseball reference.

Two other major league baseball pitchers had just engaged in an entertaining back-and-forth about their on-field gaffes: Yu Darvish waited 18 months to respond to a joke Justin Verlander had posted on Twitter at his expense, 

Thor (us friends of Noah can call him by his nickname) posted images of both tweets and commented:

"Pitcher on Pitcher crime is a scourge on our ultimate goal to defeat our true enemy. Let us unite and rise up against our real foe.....opposing batters. #pitchersunite"

Actually, besides Thor and Yu and Justin, quite a few major league baseball players are very good at Twitter. This is understandable, given the sometimes whimsical nature of the game and its extended season.

Thor wouldn't approve of this photo (credit: Joe Zwilling).

It's also particularly good Twitter practice to emulate baseball players -- and professional athletes in general -- as they adeptly ignore all the petty trolls and "fans" who routinely tweet profanity and insults while hiding behind anonymous Twitter handles that average about 25 followers. None of whom, evidently, are their mothers.

Professional athletes seem to understand that this ridiculous hatred (and jealousy) goes with the territory of being rich, talented and famous.

But here's where it crosses the line into Bad Twitter: when petty trolls and "fans" attack college athletes.

The obscene vitriol that Bad Twitter directs at non-professional 20-year-olds playing college sports is astounding, and inexcusable.

Following tweets about Notre Dame during and after Michigan soundly beat its football team Saturday night was like viewing a cesspool of humanity's lowest common denominator.

Hundreds of people took to Twitter to expose empty lives by venting at amateur athletes, younger than themselves (or, worse, their classmates), who are engaging in competition at an elite level. Why?

Few tweets were clever or added insight. Tweets that weren't profane were simply inane: "Imagine being a Notre Dame fan," taunted an anonymous someone on Twitter on Saturday night. "Lol."

Yes, just imagine: the horror of rooting for a football team made up of students from a great school that prides itself on community service and academic excellence and that has produced thousands of graduates who are making a positive difference in the world.

People like Father John Burns. Who is very good at Twitter.

A Job Where Anything Is Possible

Imagine a PR controversy involving Mother Frances Cabrini -- a woman who is, literally, America's first saint.

It happened in New York this summer.

Just this past weekend, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called it an "affront" that Mother Cabrini had been passed over by She Built NYC. That's the public-arts campaign that will install monuments to honor pioneering women for their extraordinary contributions to the city.

In August, the first six monuments were announced. All the women chosen deserve the honor. But Mother Cabrini -- a tireless advocate for the city's immigrants, children and the poor -- was not among those chosen.

This was controversial because Mother Cabrini was by far the most popular choice in a public vote when She Built NYC solicited input from New Yorkers about who they should first honor.

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Just days after the selection of these first six monuments, I thought about this PR situation as I sat in the reception area of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation offices in Manhattan.

In December, this organization would begin announcing up to $150 million in annual grants to under-served New Yorkers -- and it was looking to hire its first director of communications.

I wanted this job very much. As I waited to be interviewed, I considered how the Foundation's values were based on Mother Cabrini's values, and how its grants will help generations of New Yorkers of all faiths... or no faith at all.

A depiction of Mother Cabrini in stained glass stands in the reception area. She holds a pen and open book inscribed in Latin. I plugged the words into Google, and the translation was a powerful affirmation: "Anything is possible through the one who gives me strength."

During the job interview, I broached the subject of the monument snub.

In the back of my mind, I had what I thought would be a clever take on the situation.

I'd tell Msgr. Greg Mustaciuolo, the Foundation's CEO, that this wasn't a PR issue after all because Mother Cabrini would never have wanted a monument of herself. That would fly in the face of everything she stood for: selfless devotion in service to others.

Instead, Msgr. Greg smiled and offered a refreshing perspective. He noted that She Built NYC had evidently not spoken with current Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus before making its selection.

"If they had," he said, "they would have announced the building of six monuments to Mother Cabrini -- one in each borough and two in Manhattan."

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That was my next-to-last interview for the job. Before the final interview, I set out on a mission to discover as much as possible about Mother Cabrini's work.

Research showed that Mother Cabrini herself was as resilient as any monument. She had twice cheated death.

In a novelization of the saint's life by Nicole Gregory, I learned that Francesca Cabrini was a sickly child, the youngest of 13. She lived in northern Italy, near the home of my paternal grandparents.

At age 7, she survived a near drowning. Late in life, after building 67 schools, hospitals and orphanages worldwide, she again avoided disaster. She had been scheduled to make a transatlantic crossing on the Titanic's maiden voyage. Instead, she decided to return New York earlier to supervise the expansion of one of her hospitals.

She even seemed to defy death after death itself. Her body was interred behind clear glass beneath the altar of the St. Frances Cabrini Shrine in upper Manhattan.

I visited this shrine last month.

I roamed the grounds before The Allegro Singers presented "A Grand Opera Concert" on a Sunday afternoon in the shrine's chapel. (I loved that the job was based in New York, where diversity of thought, culture and art is readily available and celebrated. Here, for example, is a sample of soprano Alexis Cregger singing Verdi's "Ave Maria" in Italian that day.)

Baritone Charles Gray sings a selection from Mozart's "Figaro"

Amid the beautiful music and religious imagery, I learned many things about Mother Cabrini. As it turns out, as a display next to the altar explained, her body was not incorruptible.

Human as she was, Mother Cabrini's accomplishments were super-human. My immigrant Italian grandparents, as well as extended family and my maternal Polish grandparents who arrived in New York to seek a better life, owe her a great debt of gratitude.

In 1889, New York seemed to be filled with chaos and poverty. Upon stepping into this new world, Mother Cabrini and her Missionary Sisters cared for the sick. They sheltered and educated homeless orphans and families. They also established institutions that benefitted future generations.

In 2019 and beyond, this is the spirit of the programs the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation will support.

The Foundation itself is Mother Cabrini's monument in New York.

It is designed to be deathless, existing in perpetuity to improve the well-being of vulnerable New Yorkers statewide.

So I'm excited to write that next week I will begin work as director of communications for the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation.

I'm humbled too. I know that if the work of the Foundation lives up to its namesake, anything is possible.

The altar at St. Frances Cabrini Shrine in NYC

Harold Burson, All the Way to Memphis

Meeting the legendary Harold Burson, July 8 in New York.

The center of the PR universe shifted nearly a thousand miles southwest this past week.

On July 23, Harold Burson, age 98, left his adopted home of New York City to return to his boyhood home in Memphis.

Burson is "The Godfather of PR," according to this "Daily Memphian" profile. He's also the B in the global communications agency BCW (Burson Cohn & Wolfe).

Back in Memphis, he is still working, although "enjoying a pace that's just a little bit slower than that of Manhattan," as he said in a statement.

Luckily for us in New York, just days before he left, The Museum of Public Relations invited local PR students to spend time with him in connection with the opening of its Harold Burson exhibit.

About 100 students, interns and professionals heard Burson's insights gained from his handling of historic PR cases. We also heard anecdotes from his life as a journalist, including his American Forces Network coverage of the Nuremberg Trials after World War II.

And -- thanks to Shelley and Barry Spector, founder and co-founder of the Museum -- these resources are available online. The Museum's Facebook page features a live-stream of the entire July 8 event and an edited, downloadable repost with better audio.

In addition, here are great recaps of the event and more background information about the Museum and Burson exhibit on O'Dwyer's (which also calls him "The Godfather of PR") and PRWeek (including a touching thank-you tribute by Kevin McCauley).

I've posted my own photos of the event in a Google Photos folder, and I want to thank Kathy Rennie who accompanied her PR class at New Jersey City University, for the photo posted here.

Goodbye, Mr. Burson. New York already misses you.

Goodbye, Verizon: Remember Our Names

My ghost

Here are three thoughts today as I leave Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, formerly NYNEX) after 34 years to begin a new chapter in my life.

1.  No one is truly gone until their name is no longer mentioned.

This is a universal truth, expressed in different ways in different cultures over many centuries by artists and poets and philosophers.

To put it another way, it's our duty to remember those who came before us.

Here are five names of coworkers who have died, and who still have a special place in my heart.

First, from NYNEX, is Tony Pappas. He is and has always been the soul of Verizon's media relations department.

Tony Pappas

Tony was one of my first bosses. He was a legendary New York City PR executive who was a trusted confidante of journalists like Jimmy Breslin, Steve Dunleavy (who coincidentally died just this week), Pete Hamill, Larry Sutton and Verizon's own Steve Marcus. Tony cannot be described in a few words. If you're a movie aficionado, as Tony was, think Peter O'Toole in "My Favorite Year."

Tony lived a long and happy life. He passed away a few months ago, and I attended services surrounded by his family at a graveside in Rutherford, NJ, where he's buried near the poet William Carlos Williams.

This is just to say how appropriate that is.

On a more tragic and somber note, I want to mention the names of contemporaries who all died much too young.

Robin Flowers

Robin Flowers was my great friend at NYNEX. I lost track of him when he became a vice president at AT&T, then heard the sad news that he had died of multiple sclerosis in 2012.

A big man with a booming laugh, we did our share of drinking together when we were very young. But, fortunately, we also had colleagues who made up for all the brain cells we may have destroyed.

One was Jamie DePeau, an incredible spirit who died of cancer in 2016. She was the smartest of us all.

Jamie DePeau

Jamie's wildly successful post-NYNEX second act – as a senior marketing VP for TIAA-CREF and then as CMO for Lincoln Financial – inspires me today as I embark on my own new journey.

At Jamie's memorial service, I marveled at the outpouring of love and affection among family, friends and coworkers that overflowed a church that morning in Ridgewood, NJ.

The fourth name, from Bell Atlantic, is Jeff Gluck. He died of ALS in 2012, leaving behind a wonderful family, including still-young children.

Jeff was my tech guru. We shared a love of software applications and gadgets. My fondest memory of him is one morning in the early 1990s, after he installed one of the first browsers to view sites on something called the World Wide Web.

Jeff Gluck

A group of us huddled around Jeff at offices at 1095 Ave. of the Americas in New York, as he taught us about the Internet. "Where would you like to go?" Jeff asked excitedly. "I can take you anywhere in the world from this keyboard."

Our colleague Carol Fessler said, "I'd like to go to The Louvre!"

So Jeff typed a few keystrokes – and as the page loaded we realized unexpectedly, embarrassingly, that we were arriving at a site selling pornography. That truly was an appropriate introduction to our brave new world.

The fifth name, from Verizon, is Joellen Brown.

Joellen Brown

We all mourned her sudden, accidental death earlier this year. Joellen was a kind and thoughtful editor, and she wrote speeches for CEOs Ray Smith, Chuck Lee, Ivan Seidenberg and Lowell McAdam, retiring before the Hans Vestberg era began.

This past April, at another memorial service in another town, I again witnessed a room overflowing with love and affection for a life well-lived. Current and former Verizon colleagues traveled from all over the country – from Texas and West Virginia and Florida – to pay their respects and celebrate Joellen's life.

The most meaningful personal tribute I've received in my career was written in a card a dear friend gave me before the going-away party for a group of us last night. She wrote that Joellen told her when they first started working together that "if you can't find me, go find Varettoni..."

I hope I never let you down, Joellen.

2. I will never forget the Verizon PR team, and I will always mention their names with respect and love.

I'm awed by how talented, hard-working and creative the Verizon PR team is.

Here's our secret: we know that as important as the work itself is, how the work gets done is just as important. The team has always been at its best when we've shown up for each other, and when we've known we could depend on each other.

The work itself? Verizon is a company that connects people and helps them communicate. It deploys and enables new and life-changing technologies and applications.

I truly believe that Verizon is building a better future for those who will come after us.

As a company spokesperson for most of my career, that belief has made my job very easy. All the journalists I've worked with know that everyone they talk to has an agenda.

My agenda has been transparent: to be an effective advocate for all the people who make up the heart and soul of Verizon.

To all the Verizon customer service representatives, field technicians and engineers; all the Verizon Wireless store employees, executive assistants and office managers, and sales and support people; all the IT, technology and finance professionals: I admire your talents and I appreciate how difficult your jobs are.

Mine was a privileged position. I hope I always honored those I represented. Whenever I spoke on behalf of Verizon, I always knew I was standing on the shoulders of giants.

Speaking of which...

3. Here's to Robert J. Varettoni.

Robert J. Varettoni

My Dad, who died in 2005, also worked for Verizon for 34 years.

He started in sales at New York Telephone and eventually became a customer service director at NYNEX, then Verizon. He got his job at "the phone company" in 1956 through the influence of his buddy on the U.S.S. Midway and in the Navy Reserve, John A. Coleman, whose own father had been chairman of the NYSE.

Dad claimed he had no influence in getting me a job here in 1985. I find that hard to believe.

Also hard to believe (and including the few years our careers overlapped): tomorrow morning, for the first time in 63 years, there will be no "Bob Varettoni" working at Verizon.

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Finally, here's something we all can believe in, no matter where we work. It's something Dad discovered through his colleagues Vinnie Merrill, Eileen Vodola and Ed Small:

There are people working beside you today who you will love and revere for your entire life.

So ask yourself: How are you showing up for them?

Our time together is really very short and unpredictable and precious.

How will people remember your name?

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About the top photo: Dad's office used to be at 1095 Ave. of the Americas, where Verizon currently has its NYC headquarters. I have fond memories of visiting Dad there when I was a boy, so I worked from "1095" one day this week. This is a reflection of myself waiting for the elevator home.

In Bushwick, Where Everything Is Temporary

This mural is part of The Bushwick Collective, an outdoor gallery featuring works from some of the world's best street artists.

I visited there twice in 2016. After the first visit, I wrote about a work colleague who had died too young, Robin Flowers.

We had begun our PR careers together, and in 1987 we found ourselves stationed in Bushwick after a devastating fire had destroyed telephone service.

The defining characteristic of the place, even back then, was how temporary everything seemed.

One example: With our company under pressure to restore phone service quickly, our Marketing department had arranged for T-shirts for the workers on site that read, "We're working as fast as we can!" The grizzled operations executive leading the recovery efforts opened the first box of shirts and said, "We can’t use these!" -- since the phrase could mean the exact opposite in a unionized setting... a work-to-rule excuse. As soon as he uttered those words, our PR vice president grabbed the box from Robin's hands and hurled it into a nearby dumpster.

Revisiting Bushwick in 2016, I was struck by the area's change and revitalization in barely two decades. The once-impoverished community had become home to vibrant street art and commerce.

I carved Robin's initials into one wall there as a makeshift memorial -- my life's only attempt at street art. I was delighted and encouraged to find the "RF" still there a few months later when I returned to take photos on my own.

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Three years later -- last Saturday -- I returned to The Bushwick Collective a third time and saw that Robin's initials had long ago been painted over.

I was with a group of talented photographers from New Jersey's Black Glass Gallery, but I didn't have the heart to take many photos. The street art was just as compelling. Here's a site where you can see the great photos my friends took that day.

But me? Just hours earlier, I had learned that another work friend -- Joellen Brown -- had been been in an accident and was in an intensive unit in Philadelphia with a head injury.

I wandered aimlessly around Bushwick on my own, preoccupied with thoughts and prayers for Joellen, until I came to the corner of Johnson and Gardner.

There, I stopped in my tracks, and took photo after photo of the mural that accompanies this post. It's a work by Michel Velt, an urban artist from the Netherlands. The wavy-haired model, according to Michel's Instagram site, is Nathaly Smits.

It wasn't the mural's beauty that transfixed me. It was a rare sense of familiarity and recognition. When I returned home and compared my 2019 photos to my 2016 photos, I realized that this was the only mural that I had photographed in the neighborhood that had survived for three years.

That’s the thing about Bushwick. As beautiful and poignant and playful and life-affirming as the street art is, it is meant to be temporary. That's the point of it all. The murals here survive for six months, maybe a year... but then they are painted over... and the cycle begins again.

Nothing lasts forever.

In Bushwick, everything is temporary. Except maybe this mural.

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The very next morning, I learned that Joellen had died.

My friend was a wonderful writer, but sometimes there are no words.

I took this photo of Joellen when she visited Verizon offices in New Jersey around Christmas 2017, right before she retired, so that it might be included in "Verizon Untethered," a history that was published last spring. She's included in the acknowledgements: "Joellen Brown, part of the Verizon executive communications team for more than 30 years, helped to provide historical context and research materials. She also reviewed the text for accuracy multiple times."

She isn't listed as one of the book's authors. If you look back at any of the half dozen speeches she wrote that were published over the years in "Vital Speeches of the Day" (a prestigious monthly collection of the best speeches in the world), you won't find her name there either.

Instead, you'll find a transcript of Bell Atlantic executive Ray Smith at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. In 1999, he talked about hate speech on the Internet. Joellen titled the speech, "Civility Without Censorship." She wrote: "Instead of fearing the Internet's reach, we need to embrace it -- to value its ability to connect our children to the wealth of positive human experience and knowledge... We need to fight destructive rhetoric with constructive dialogue -- hate speech with truth -- restrictions with greater access."

In 2010, at the Economic Club of Washington DC, Verizon executive Ivan Seidenberg used Joellen's words to sound more presidential than a real-life president: "We need accountable leaders in government, as well as in the business community, who reject the false choices between job creation or deficit reduction, growth or sustainability, serving consumers or investors, managing for the short term or the long term, being profitable or doing things right. Real leadership isn't about making false choices; it's about finding solutions to real problems."

In 2016, I asked Joellen to contribute a blog post to the fledgling website of the New Jersey Chapter of the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators). She readily agreed, and what a treat it is to have a record of Joellen's observations about speechwriting in her own words. That post has been widely re-distributed in the PR community, and you can read it here.

Here too is more of Joellen in her own words, speaking about her endowment to Ohio Wesleyan University in honor of her sister.

If you want a sense of her life, please read her obituary in The Philadelphia Inquirer, which includes loving detail provided by her good friend, our former colleague Jay Grossman.

If you want to make a meaningful difference in Joellen's memory, please consider donating to Philadelphia Young Playwrights.

Finally, if you are looking for life lessons, I urge you to visit The Bushwick Collective. You will be reminded there, amid all the beauty and the chaos, that nothing lasts forever. There is no refuge in art. And sometimes there are no words.

The only thing that may transcend time is our impact on the lives of others after we are gone.

This is how Joellen Brown will be long-remembered.

You Can Call Me Al (Smith Dinner, 2018)

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About last night... I was honored to be able to attend the NY Archdiocese’s Al Smith Dinner, a quintessentially New York tradition named for the former NY governor, dubbed “The Happy Warrior,” who made an historic run as the first Catholic nominee for the U.S. presidency in 1928. At this annual politically-charged dinner in October, politicians traditionally poke fun at each other and set aside differences in an event that now raises multiple millions of dollars each year to support charities that serve New York’s neediest children. Outgoing UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, introduced by comedian Jim Gaffigan, poked fun at herself — although both she and Cardinal Dolan seriously addressed the latest scandals making headlines in the Catholic Church. Verizon, where I work, has been a major contributor to many charitable organizations, and the company’s chairman, Lowell McAdam, received this year’s Happy Warrior Award. He had this to say: “My career at one of the world’s leading tech companies has left me feeling, on the whole, very optimistic and confident about what lies ahead.” I feel the same way. #AlSmith #CatholicCharities

A post shared by Bob Varettoni (@bvarphotos) on Oct 19, 2018 at 6:55am PDT

Here are more photos, from my highlighted story on Instagram.