Sheldon's Career
Is it funny or crazy or prescient that my guiding maxim came from a sequence in a 1934 Our Gang Comedy short flick? Picture this: The gang of Little Rascals are careening down a hill in a makeshift firetruck trying to outrace the snooty, rich kid in his sleek bells-and-whistles firetruck fitted with a comfy rumble seat for him to impress a young blond-tressed lass (also the heartthrob of one of the young rascals). Spanky is in the driver’s seat in front. Seven rascals sit in the middle supplying the foot power. Stymie in his bowler hat is in the rear with control of the rear wheel and the loosely defined handbrake. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way!”
School and University Years
That line really spoke to me, and I adopted it as a maxim to live by. I never had a 5-year plan to follow in mapping out career moves but did have an open mind to delve into whatever adventures might come my way. I wasn’t completely rudderless. I did decide to major in journalism as an entering freshman at the University of Texas at Austin inspired by my experience working on the Schulenburg High School newspaper, The Shorthorn, and my fascination with Charles Kuralt’s On the Road series on CBS News. I also leaned in this direction because my father’s only advice to me when considering my academic route was “don’t major in drama.” I guess he did not think I had the chops to be an actor (despite winning Best Actor at the regional one-act play contest my sophomore year!!). But, inspired by Kuralt, I would travel the world in search of personal life stories of ordinary and extraordinary people. I entered the Journalism Department at the time when Watergate was monopolizing all news cycles. Hard-core investigation that could unseat a President of the United States became the new benchmark for good journalism. By the time I graduated with my BJ degree in 1974, I knew that I did not have it in me to be a Woodward or Bernstein. I did not see myself working on a newspaper or in news broadcasting. But I did like the photography classes and layout aspects of magazine journalism.
To elaborate a bit, as a UT freshman, I volunteered to help my friend Andy who was on staff of the UT Yearbook, The Cactus. I actually did not want to work on the yearbook having been editor of my high school yearbook and feeling burnt out but just thought I could help out Andy for a few weeks to meet his deadline. By my sophomore year, I was a section editor and then assistant editor of the 1973 Cactus my junior year. And by my senior year I had put myself in the running to be Cactus editor but was not selected. A new literary magazine supplement to The Daily Texan, PEARL, was just getting started down the hall of the Texas Student Publications building; I walked into the office and was given the job as its first graphics director. That was a fun year. I was really proud of the look of the magazine. I was selected editor the following fall semester. Having already graduated in spring of 1974, I had to register for another semester in order to continue working as a student on PEARL. Despite the great experience of managing a publication, I could not justify a second academic semester that cost much more than what I was earning as editor. Thinking it best to get on with a real career, I resigned as editor after one semester.
Washington DC
By August of 1975, I decided to visit my brother Irvin in Washington, DC. He had moved there in June and was working at the National Gallery of Art. My first day in Washington, I took a walk through Rock Creek Park and was overwhelmed by the green lushness running through the heart of the city. It was love at first sight. I wanted to stay a while. Within a week of taking a government entry test, I found a job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a place where I could work for an extended stay in DC then easily leave in a few months.
The months turned into two years. By August 1977, I had worked my way up into several advanced levels within Farmers Home Administration. The jobs were never really very challenging, so I had made the decision to leave federal government service and see the world, then let my next job find me. I planned a backpacking trip to England, Scotland, and France. The folks at FmHA did not let me fully leave my job but gave me an “educational leave of absence”.
My solo travels really opened my mind, and I was feeling refreshed. Little did I know that my maxim would fully play out that first weekend of my return. I was helping my brother to paint his new apartment on Q Street in Georgetown. Irvin had become friends with a guy who had also been a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and was now working at the Carter White House. He had a car and had offered to drive us to pick up more paint. This amiable guy chatted all afternoon with me as I painted. We continued the conversation over drinks that evening. And – a fairly long story made short – John Campbell and I continued to see each other
Back at USDA, the FmHA associate administrator, a woman whom I really admired, called me and asked me to return to the agency to work for her. I was moved by her request. It looked like I would be staying in Washington. John was also continuing in a new position at the White House. Within a few weeks, he and I got an apartment together. Hey, these were the Seventies!!
John’s new job for the White House was program officer for the International Year of the Child Commission. I got to know his colleagues, and we “schemed” to have me detailed from FmHA to work on staff of the IYC. I brought my communications skills to the job and enjoyed a few months of working on this UN initiative. Ultimately, I was called back to FmHA and went to work in their public information office. I got to produce a couple films: one on bringing water into homes for the first time in poor neighborhoods in Brownsville, TX; and another on a migrant health clinic, Nueva Esperanza, near Sacramento, CA.
In 1979, a friend and I co-directed/produced this short film for a filmmaking class at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington. We borrowed the Super 8mm camera and shot without sound. The actors volunteered their talents on a Saturday morning in Rock Creek Park. I added the music for this website. Okay, so it may not make it on Netflix, but the moral of the story is still solid, thanks to James Thurber!!
Graduate School Years
Four years pass. It’s 1980. Ronald Reagan is elected president. My work in the public information office of FmHA all but came to an end since the new administration was not interested in publicizing the monies available to farmers. John’s Carter White House years had also come to an end. All signs indicated a time to leave Washington. My experience with filmmaking at FmHA helped me to get accepted into the master’s degree program in the Radio-Television-Film department at UT Austin. John was accepted in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at UT. By the summer of 1981, we had packed up our apartment (plus a friend’s) in a 24-foot Ryder truck and drove from Washington to Austin. Students again, and I was about to turn 30.
To supplement my student-older-than-average loan, I got a part-time job with the Texas Sesquicentennial Commission in the Texas Governor’s Office. I also worked as a teaching assistant in some undergraduate RTF classes. With my MA completed in 1984, I was hired by Keep Texas Beautiful, Inc., to be the media director. During the couple years spent there, I produced several videos of Texas towns and cities that had won state beautification awards. I felt a bit like Charles Kuralt visiting with the people across the state capturing their stories on film. Traveling with a film crew around the state was a fun gig. However, the practically criminal leadership of the KTB executive director created a distressing work environment. By 1987, John had received an invitation to go work at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. I was not really keen on moving back to Washington as I saw my bustling film career jumpstarting in Texas. But NAS was paying for the move. I happily bid farewell to my boss at Keep Texas Beautiful, Inc. After six years in Texas, John and I were returning to Washington, DC.
As partial fulfillment of my master’s degree, I was hired in 1983 to produce a promotional video for the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Except for the camera work, I did all the production and post-production. The LBJ School hired me again in 1986 to produce an updated video of the school; this time I hired a production company to do all the filming and editing while I wrote the script. Unfortunately, I do not have a copy of that second version.
National Academy of Sciences
By 1987, John had received an invitation to go work at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. I was not really keen on moving back to Washington as I saw my bustling film career jumpstarting in Texas. But NAS was paying for the move. I happily bid farewell to my boss at Keep Texas Beautiful, Inc. After six years in Texas, John and I were returning to Washington, DC. With my maxim as a guiding principle, I happened upon a temp job at the National Academy of Sciences, which involved helping to prepare for the opening of a new NAS center in Irvine, CA. I endeared myself to the staff with my organizational and communication skills and soon found myself in California to help manage the formal event.
While in California, I had also networked with the staff director of the NAS Film Committee and subsequently became the project coordinator on The Infinite Voyage, a science documentary series on public television. My job entailed helping to assemble advisory panels of illustrious scientists and engineers who would provide the scientific integrity and expertise to the scripts being written and produced by WQED, the PBS station in Pittsburgh, PA. I worked on 10 episodes and convened meetings all over the country. [On a day off during a trip to WQED’s FX studio in Los Angeles, I fulfilled a childhood fantasy in my mid-30s and went to Disneyland with a colleague.]
After five years, Digital Equipment Corporation could no longer afford to continue as the sole underwriter of the series. I had an offer to move into a position in the NAS news office but chose to move on. For several months, I enjoyed life in Washington while job searching. One criterion that I set for myself in finding the next job was that it had to be with an institution that required me to be in Washington, DC (if this is where John and I were destined to stay awhile).
The World Bank
As destiny would have it, I found an unexpected fit at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (aka: The World Bank). I had never worked or thought about working in the international arena. But the opportunity and new challenge really resonated with me. Since 1993, I have been continually working for the World Bank as either full-time or part-time consultant. One of my earliest positions was as a project assistant on an Asian cities’ environmental program. My earlier work on the statewide litter program with Keep Texas Beautiful, Inc., had morphed into an environmental cleanup initiative in six Asian cities. I continued to work over several years as an editor on several environmental publications for East and South Asian countries.
A big career move happened in 1997 when I was hired to manage the publication of a catalogue for an exhibition of historic cities and sacred places, a major safeguard initiative of the World Bank. I continued to work with this special group for a couple years. By 1999, I was hired as one of a few editors in the World Bank’s central corporate office. This job really changed the trajectory of my professional career, putting me in the forefront of World Bank policy and operations.
Following a World Bank Conference on Historic Cities and Sacred Places in Florence, Italy in October 1999, my Bank colleagues and friends met at Villa Pallazzone outside Cortona for a post-conference retreat. The Villa, built in early 16th Century by Cardinal Silvio Passerine, who wanted to show his families prestige and ties to the Medici family, was given to Pisa’s Scuola Normale Superiore in 1968 to be used for educational purposes. Our group may have stretched those rules but did learn a lot about Tuscan cuisine, wine, and countryside. Since only breakfast was provided at the Villa, our group had to hike the mile or so into Cortona for lunch and dinner. I had a stop-over in Sienna with a friend on my way back to Washington; we were booked into a convent that rented rooms to weary travelers and imposed a 10:00 pm curfew.
Amsterdam Years
In 2005 John was selected to head the InterAcademy Council, a worldwide consortium of national science academies, headquartered in Amstersdam [read John’s career story in this website]. My boss at the World Bank was encouraging when I told her I planned to move with John to The Netherlands. She offered me a new contract that allowed me to telework. From 2005-2013, I was able to continue editing from my canal house office space overlooking the Leliegracht.
John’s IAC predecessor had hired me to edit the first publication produced by IAC. I subsequently was hired to do the final copyedit of all IAC publications while we were in Amsterdam. When we returned to Washington in 2013 upon John’s retirement, I continued to work from my home office on Veazey Street with an expanding list of World Bank clients from all over the world. In retirement, I continue to accept editing work from old and new colleagues at the World Bank, more like a part-time hobby, when I am available and interested.Back in Austin, Texas
I like my maxim — “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way”. Too bad I never had it embroidered on a pillow. It has somehow led me to a career of unexpected experiences alongside fascinating colleagues, many of whom remain friends in places all over the world. I don’t think I could have planned ahead for such a professional trajectory. Even today as John and I live in a downtown Austin high-rise, I like to think that I am still “on my way” and may just get that embroidered pillow made.