AFTER SELLING THE CHICKEN COOP WHERE HAPPILY HATCHED SO MANY PROFITABLE EGGS COMES A TINGE OF SADNESS
Next day after that climactic event, the closing, comes a few nostalgic moments. Yes, like so many offices today, mine has come home, not to roost, but to continue to thrive.
Sure, it was rewarding and gratifying for my public relations firm TransMedia Group to own the egg nest for 25 years where we hatched so many grandiose, notable and profitable deals for clients, making many of them rich and famous.
It was where the late, great entrepreneur Carl DeSantis one day in our boardroom decided to purchase what was a small energy drink called Celsius, which turned into a billion-dollar business.
It was where before that we helped place another company Carl owned, Rexall Sundown, so high on the media map that it became a giant in nutritional supplements, which he sold for $1.6 billion, crediting our PR for playing a pivotal role.
Yes, we even got Carl’s company featured on NBC Dateline at the network where I once was the #2-ranked executive.
It’s a place where we launched so many businesses, enabling many CEO’s to become leaders in their respective fields.
Still, many on our staff led by my indomitable daughter Adrienne Mazzone, president of the PR firm I started when I left NBC, kept telling me that our awesome staff would prefer working, as they say, “remotely.”
I never cared for that word “remotely,” but now that’s how my daughter and I and the rest of our talented crew will all be operating from our scattered abodes as so many others are doing today.
We sold our entire floor of offices in our stately commercial office building in downtown Boca Raton and now, thanks to the Internet, we’ll be promoting our PR clients from our respective domiciles. Instead of a home office, we’ll now have many.
It’s a symptom of what is happening today in the work world. Employees and now even business owners would rather work from home, thanks in part to the COVID pandemic, which gave us all a taste and it tasted pretty good!
Who wants to commute today especially on jam-packed, mishap prone I95? “Sorry, I’ll be late to the office” will be one of those messages that may fade into work history.
Still I’m feeling nostalgic as so many beautiful memories will still reside in Suite 300 at 240 W. Palmetto Park Rd., directly across from City Hall in booming Boca Raton, FL.
The purchaser is a wonderful gentleman from that unflinching, brave-at-heart country and one of our closest allies, Israel. Avi Tansman is a leader sure to help his native country rebound from that dastardly attack by Hamas terrorists who will pay, and should pay, a price for their boundless, desecrating evil.
Avi is starting a foundation about to raise funds to rebuild the kibbutz where one of his sons lives near Gaza, but fortunately was away on that dreadful Black Saturday and now is on assignment in the Israeli military. Avi plans to replace the name TransMedia Public Relations on the monument sign I built 24 years ago out in front of the building to the name of his internationally successful “A World of Wipes.”
Still, my fond memories of that productive, inspiring space my PR firm occupied for so long, where we flexed media muscles enough to help so many businesses to flourish, will never wipe away.
Now I will help Avi raise what it takes to rebuild all those devastated kibbutzim and I pray Israel like America will live forever.
Tom Madden is a PR guy from way back, which he wrote about in his first book SPIN MAN. After that came KING OF THE CONDO; next, IS THERE ENOUGH BRADY IN TRUMP TO WIN THE INSUPERABLE BOWL? Then LOVE BOAT 78, followed by his latest book WORDSHINE MAN, about how to make writing inviting. Madden is founder and CEO of TransMedia Group and prior to that he was vice president, assistant to the president at NBC in New York City, who was then the TV programming wunderkind, the late, great Fred Silverman.
