It's Friday. TG for that. But I'm even more grateful that late this afternoon I got a call from a former colleague, whose initials happen to be TG, with whom I worked side by side for over ten years. He was probably in his late twenties when he arrived at Sterling Hager, Inc. He did the shy, teach me oh wise master thing for about three days. In week two he morphed into a PR Turk.

He and the team he built counseled clients worldwide, enabling us to attract some of the best and brightest. It was the Agency's golden era. He could be one of the most difficult people to manage. A demanding perfectionist. A wicked taskmaster. At times, like me, an egomaniac. But he had a principled stubborn streak and a touch of Mississippi chutzpah that forced me to think and rethink everything. You can spend ten years with colleagues who never demonstrate they care an ounce about anything beyond themselves. TG cared intensely about the vague, amorphous entity that was the firm.

TG arrived a DINK (dual income, no kids). He left the firm, soon after I did, with two sons, now aged 5 and 7. Like me, he's become a slightly older, significantly wiser person who picks fewer fights and wins more of them. I loved Sterling Hager, Inc. for a lot of reasons. Call it corny, but chief among them was that I had a ringside seat on the sidelines of young people's growth in life (not just business). One of my hires is now the lead editor at a major regional technology weekly. Another is a tenured professor. TG is architecting one of the country's biggest wealth management company's positioning and strategic blueprint. Another favorite went on to a CAD company where he directs national corporate communications. When I hired him, he was reporting local school boy sports scores for a town paper. Another now heads the reputational management division of a major national credit card company. Three went on to form very successful agencies of their own: Marianne O'Connor, Maura FitzGerald, and Alan Kelly.

It's Friday. You're thinking Sorry Old Sterling is on a trip of self-indulgence down memory lane? Maybe. But here's why I disagree. At AgencyNext there's an individual by the name of David Cote (as in Coat-ee). He's in his mid-twenties and he's from Worcester. Don't know Worcester? Think Trenton, Akron, Morgan Hill or any other has-been never was backwater city. Like me, he was born with a wooden spoon in his mouth. He got through high school and college by working eighty hours a week at a local golf course. (Great training for PR, by the way.)

Dave took time out this week to drive his kid sister to school. He also spent the last two weeks trying to nurse a strep throat with Halls cough drops because he didn't want to be sick and didn't want to take time off to see a doctor. He never let on in the office that he was ailing until the damn thing practically brought him to his knees yesterday afternoon. OK, on that score he's an idiot. But he's my kind of idiot. A scrappy, never say no, second city kind of guy with talent like a diamond as big as the Ritz. This week the blog he writes for an RFID client was linked by RFID World. Page views went crazy. Dave also somehow managed to get a coveted interview at Cadalyst for a client of ours. He was in touch with some 500 editors regarding four separate trade events at which two of our clients are featured.

Dave Cote has a tall, athletic frame… and the attractive big-business look similar to your model MBA. What's more, he has a laugh you can't resist and he writes like Hemingway. I can't wait to see how far he goes!

Memory Lane. More like Back to the Future, only this time it is bigger and brighter than ever.

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