INTERVIEW by Joslyn Moore

INTERVIEW: JEFFREY T MOORE

For this assignment, I started out wondering what aspects of journalism mean the most? Who could I talk to, other than the normal journalist, who knows about these aspects? I didn’t want to interview another journalist because we have been the audience to so many during class this semester. We students have already learned some of the most resourceful hints and tips from the class speakers. I wanted to get tips and hints from other people, outside the journalism realm, that may apply to our jobs in the future. So, I decided to go to a wise man I have known for a very long time, my father. As many children do, I have learned a multitude of lessons from my father. Jeffrey Todd Moore owns an electrical contracting business, Trident Construction, in Northern Michigan (about ten hours north from Chicago). Throughout the years, I have accompanied him on electrical-runs, jobs, and material pick-ups. I have encountered his meetings with clients and business partners, employees. I have admired his keen skill with networking in the greater Michigan area and beyond, and spreading his business name across the countrysides and cities.

So, when I was preparing for this interview, I recalled on my father’s networking skills. I wanted to know more about how he used them to advance in his career, what networking meant--what it’s value was--and whether he thought his success would still be standing today having the skill of networking absent. I picked up the phone a few weeks prior to the assignment due date and asked Mr. Moore if he’d be willing to partake in an interview, coming soon, relating to his business, career, and the skill of networking. First my dad was surprised that me--being placed in a large city--would decide upon little old him as the first person I would want to interview. However, I reassured him that his lessons about business that he taught me over the years have left an indelible mark on my growing mind. I knew that everybody in our class would benefit from a short tidbit of his advice as well, so I persuaded him to be interviewed.

A week later I called home once again, and the interview process began. I could hear the familiar sound of my dad sipping some coffee in the background, dark-blend no doubt. Being a businessman in the slow, country-oriented Northern Michigan, a work day means five thirty A.M. to six or seven P.M.. It is necessary for him, then, to get multiple cups of Joe in the morning. I asked him questions about the job market (slow), and how he was holding up (fine). These were questions that helped ease the beginning of the interview, and we got on a more comfortable level before proceeding to the more difficult questions. “As I have learned, one aspect of your job regards the skill of networking. Explain how networking plays a role in your career,” I offered. Jeffrey replied with, as usual, a philosophical response relating to not himself, but all characters in his work field. Again he thinks of the big picture. But that of in itself helps me understand networking: Mr. Moore immediately answered the question in third person. Not once did he say “us,” “we,” or “I,” but rather “one,” “oneself”, etcetera. This reveals how his business oriented mind is ticking: he thinks of his customers, his clients, his relations first before himself. He was answering as if on behalf of his branch of work, not just his specific company. His oral answer, paraphrased, went along the lines of how the best thing about networking is being able to find people with the proper problem solving skill sets that will help another person face their specific challenges. It’s like using other people’s skills that you don’t/can’t possess, and applying their skills to fix your problem, or to make better your situation.

After my dad finished consuming no less than 16 ounces of coffee, he took a short phone break and (as I imagined) wondered over to our fireplace-lit kitchen to brew some more Folgers’s Premium Dark-Roast Blend coffee. I heard our large, white refrigerator pull open, accompanied by some bottles and plastic ruffling sounds, and then the fridge door glued shut. The phone line welcomed his voice again, and crunching noises followed thereafter. Well, that’s dad for ya! I took that as my signal to proceed to the next question. “Do you think that networking has been one of the major tools in your job that have led you to a level of success? Could you imagine being where you are today without knowing how to network?” I inquired. Mr. Moore began as a master electrician signed on to a company in Northern Michigan called Sky Electric. After some years, he decided to open up his own business, called J n’ C Electric. A few years after that, to expand to a wider audience, he hired on more employees and renamed the company Trident Construction. Now his company, still a thriving business in the quick-sand environment of Northern Michigan, is able to provide electrical contracting services to a number of residential and commercial clients. Jeffrey basically said that in no means could he have survived Michigan’s treacherous business climate and reach success without knowing how to network, and network well. It is a skill absolutely necessary to his business relations.

One of the most interesting, rather surprising things that I have learned about my dad and his business is that, even though he deals with electrical issues and construction matters, the skills he uses can easily be applied to journalism, (among many other careers). The most prominent of those skills being networking. As my dad mentioned to me after refilling his glorious liquid remedy to life (coffee), networking allows you to develop far reaching relationships and resources. Everybody you meet can be a valuable asset to you, your company, and/or your work in some way. It is important to be respectful to those members of the workforce older than you, as well as those younger. Anybody may have skills or talents that can develop your ideas further. I can clearly recall my dad, in his beginning years, trying in everyway to spread the name of his business around. My mother would bring business cards to her work, I would always have spares in my pocket, and my dad of course would hand them out incessantly. Now today, because of his hard work and effort put into networking, he has close relationships with many other businesses (of all sorts) around Michigan, neighboring states, and across the country. When he needs a handful of new employees, advice, help, or job offers, he can call upon one of the many people he has come to know. Networking is a skill that I plan to practice thoroughly as I try to make way for my name in journalism. Thanks to my dad, I have learned the pure importance of this skill. I hope many of the students in our class take away with them this advice as well.