Blog categories | FOCM Networking

LaunchBio NC Networking

LaunchBio (LaunchBio) holds events on the first Thursday of the month in Durham, NC. They are held in the Chesterfield Building in the downtown area. The building was formerly a cigarette manufacturing building. It has now been converted and there is incubator lab space for drug discovery and development.

It is a great opportunity for networking with people involved in the clinical research industry. Here I am enjoying a Durty Bull Lager beer and conversation with Peter Weiman and David Holland (they’re drinking the IPA that was being served).

Quotes taken out of context

As some of you know, when I hear someone say something that, if taken out of context strikes me funny, I make note of it. I’ve done this for years at corporate meetings and have published many of them at this website.

Being out of larger corporations and their penchant for meetings, meetings and more meetings, I’m not presented with as many opportunities. Here are a few captured over the past 3 years in a variety of settings:

I drink a lot, all the time.
– Michelle Jacobson, 7/14/2015

My beer is always full of fridge.
– Michelle Jacobson, 7/14/2015

The men are easy.
– Kelly O’Brien, 7/14/2015

She just changed reality!
– Chris Matheus (date unrecorded)

Sooner or later, everything happens.
– Kevin Clover, May 2018

How not to get hired

Reprinting this from a Reader’s Digest:

These are things not to do when interviewing. These were provided by hiring managers:

Candidate specified that his availability was limited because Friday, Saturday and Sunday was “drinking time”.
Candidate explained an arrest by stating, “We stole the pig, but it was a really small pig.”
Advertising is a tough business. Which may be why one prospective adman wrote a cover letter boasting, “I am getting to my goal, slowly but surly.”

FOCM New Members and DIA 2018

FOCM was busy before and at the DIA convention in Boston in June. FOCM along with Zymewire, Investigator Support Services, Kwipped and DataMatrix sponsored the 2nd annual Sunday night networking event before DIA exhibits opened. In the exhibit hall, FOCM gave its seal of approval to several vendors, assisTek being one. Unfortunately, the Arizona State Sun Devil hand sign snuck into the picture. In the shadow on the table, it appears to be a weapon of some kind.

At the recent annual Drug Information Association (DIA) meeting held in Boston last month, two outstanding individuals completed the grueling probationary period, thorough background checks and initiation process. Please join me in welcoming Andrew Suri and Megan Carson to FOCM. As others who have received their membership cards, the ceremony itself can be emotionally draining. This was no exception, the sheer joy on their faces tells the story.

Andrew is Director of Business Development for Clinogix. Megan is Assistant Project Manager at assisTek.

A Look Back at Politics 1948

After my Mom’s passing in October 2017, we found letters she had written to her parents while she was away at college. She spent one year attending Arizona State College at Tempe (now Arizona State University). She was there in 1948, during the Presidential election between Thomas Dewey and Harry Truman. It was interesting to read her comments and to find they don’t sound much different than today.

In late September of that year, she and her Aunt “went into Phoenix to hear Dewey”. She wrote this: “Daddy, I’m sure you would have liked the part about free enterprise and little government regulation of business.” (My grandfather worked automobile parts industry.) Dewey was the Republican candidate. To this day, Republican candidates still run on easing government regulation of business and letting free enterprise reward companies that make and deliver what people want while making a profit and weeding out those that don’t.

She also wrote, “He sounds as tho he’ll clean up Washington & make things efficient.” We certainly hear this comment from Presidential candidates every four years.

Not much has changed.

Job Finding Assistance Request

A dues-paying FOCM Network member, Carrie Gallagher has requested the assistance of the network in connecting her son, Patrick Gallagher to opportunities of employment in the Raleigh-Durham area. The strength, breadth and depth of the FOCM network to help in this endeavor is being sought out.

Patrick wants to get into the video game industry and has recently applied at Red Storm Entertainment, Boss Keys and Epic Games. For FOCM Members in the Raleigh/Durham area: does anyone know someone at these or other video game industry companies that might be willing to help Patrick get an informational interview/meeting. He’s just looking to speak with someone and knows that the rest is up to him.
Patrick has taken classes in scientific and technical visualization, game art and design, is proficient in 3DS Max and builds his own computers. He has some coding experience but isn’t certified just yet.

Patrick has worked continuously since he was 16. He is hard working, smart, and nice (his mother’s words and I have met him and agree with her). He’s done very well at every job he has held; always given more responsibility and is well liked by his colleagues. He is ready to move from a job to a career.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Patrick’s Resume

The 5 Second Rule

Just watched a very good Ted talk by Mel Robbins and am sharing it with you at the link below. Some practical things to do to make your life better and more fulfilling. Some things to do are simple:

when your alarm goes off, GET UP!
if you have an urge to dance, DANCE!
if you have an urge to say something, SAY IT!

How to stop screwing yourself over

Mel Robbins Website

Quotes of Winston Churchill

I received a gift from a friend of a book entitled “The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill” compiled by Dominique Enright and several struck me as particularly noteworthy, really speaking either to my sense of humor or my beliefs, which I share with you below:

“if I valued the honourable gentleman’s opinion, I might get angry”, Churchill responded calmly when an Ulster Member shouted “contemptible” during a … debate in the House.

and a favorite of mine – “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

“Trying to maintain good relations with a Communist is like wooing a crocodile. You do not know whether to tickle it under the chin or beat it over the head. When it opens its mouth, you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up.”

“The worst quarrels only arise when both sides are equally in the right and in the wrong.”

“Criticism is easy; achievement is difficult.”

“of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.”

FOCM Networking Meeting Minutes March 12, 2018

Report filed from Outpost RTP:

March 12, 2018

It was a bitterly cold and snowy night that caused all but the bravest souls to stay in their warm homes. Only a select few dared to venture out into the third major winter storm in March.

FOCM members are nothing if not brave, courageous, oh and, thirsty, let’s not forget that. So there we were on March 12, had previously arranged to have this event at a location which will now remain nameless since they closed and didn’t let me know. A quick decision was needed and made. With no time to spare a note was sent out stating we would meet at Mez.

First to arrive at the closed meeting site was Pippa Wilson of Barrington James, second to arrive was Kathleen Finn of Barrington James, third to arrive was Bernie Linner with West Coast Clinical Trials. We then headed to Mez where we met up with the intrepid (yes, I used dictionary.com) FOCM members (Drew Harrison, Steve Caravaglio, Derrick Ferrar, Carol Miller (photo taker), Chad Pollio, Brooks Satterfield and Kasey Karr (not pictured; arrived late, but made up for it by staying late). FOCM NEVER cancels its events due to weather! (of course, FOCM reserves the right to change its rules at any time.)

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