Breakfast with Herb & Mike

The evolution of leadership is inseparable from the responsibility to advance and uphold equality. In this continuing breakfast conversation, Herb and Mike reflect on how that truth has played out—both across our business community and in their own lives—revealing how progress, perspective, and personal experience shape the leaders we become.

Mike: The 36th annual Strictly Business Forum is in the books. Terrific guests and great conversation. How was your table?

Herb: It was wonderful. We were old friends and we had a chance to reminisce and share our ideas about the future of the North Country.

Mike: Before the Forum, I dug out the January issue of SB published in 1991 and read through it. I was struck by two things. First, people are still concerned about many of the same things—inflation, competition, workforce issues, economic volatility, and changes in technology. Second: Where were the women? You had 30 men and two women. Why so few?

Herb: We had two women because, in those days it was tough to find women leaders to participate.

Mike: Times sure have changed. Now, when we put together our list of invitees for the Forum we end up with close to a 50-50 split. We don’t set out to match one for one, but there are so many accomplished women the job is easy.

Herb: Women like Janet Duprey, Hope Coryer, Celine Paquette and others helped to pave the way for this generation of women leaders.

Mike: Today there are women in positions of power in every industry. Here in the North Country women are serving as president of CVPH Medical Center, Clinton County’s administrator, Clinton County Clerk, mayors in Malone and Champlain, Executive Directors of the Industrial Development Agency (IDA), The Development Corp (TDC) and the Adirondack Economic Development Corp (AEDC).

“You will find them as presidents of Miner Institute, Fort Ticonderoga, the Wild Center and the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) and director of the Adirondack Foundation. They are CEOs of private companies including Northern Insuring, Twinstate Technologies, The Agency Insurance, and Riley Ford and presidents/executive directors of health service agencies like Behavioral Health Services North (BHSN), the Advocacy Resource Center (ARC), and an education leader at Champlain Valley Educational Services (CVES).

Herb: That is an amazing list. While women were advancing through skill and hard work, attitudes had to change as well. In the 1980s there were jobs that were not open to women, and they were excluded from many public service organizations. All that ended when the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that such discrimination was unlawful.

Mike: Today women make up a large part of the membership of groups like Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs. Betsy (Vicencio, VP and CFO of the Northeast Group), is president of the Noon Rotary Club and right behind her is another woman who will assume the club’s top job next.

Herb: And look at the number of women in politics—city and town councils, zoning and planning boards, school boards, state-wide, and national offices.

Mike: Let’s talk for a minute about women who had an impact on us.

Herb: When I was in the Air Force, stationed at Goose Bay, Labrador, I was a rudderless eighth grade dropout. It was a cold, desolate place with nothing to do after I finished my shifts so, out of boredom one day I went to the base library. There I met a librarian who showed me how to find books that might interest me—historical fiction and science fiction. She even talked me into taking a philosophy class. When I signed up, I didn’t even know what philosophy was. I don’t know how she did it, but she ignited a thirst for knowledge in me that has carried throughout my life. What about you?

Mike: One woman who stands out was a counselor at the rehab I went to in 1989. She had a uniqueness about her. She’d battled addiction in her own right. She was incredibly loving, but also very blunt. She understood, at a time when I did not, that I would likely not live very long if I continued down the path I was on. She challenged me in a very pointed, but caring way to change my life. Although it took me a few tries, many of the things she told me still ring true today.

Herb: I never met that woman, but I will be forever grateful to her.

Mike: You know Dad, I’ve been alive for 62 years, and in that time, we have made some significant changes to how we see people who are not like us—civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights—all great accomplishments. My hope is that someday we get to a place where we all just have equal rights.