For those of you who don’t know my entire background, please know I served in the United States Army for two years, 1969 and 1970. I can’t say it was a happy time, but I was fortunate to perform my entire service at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

For those of you who have attended my meetings in Westport and/or meetings where I have been a guest speaker, you may remember that for almost the entire 1980’s I was Chief Financial Officer of an Advertising Agency by the name of Levine, Huntley, Schmidt & Beaver. Donald Trump was one of our clients. Unlike most of the vendors doing business with the Taj Mahal, I did collect ALL of the money owed us. It wasn’t easy, but I specialize in the surgical wallet removal.

I only met Mr. Trump once. I basically passed him in the hall as my boss was leading him back to his office or to a meeting in our conference room. My boss did introduce us, but I doubt he would remember me. (Hopefully, he wouldn’t.)

When Mr. Trump decided to run for the Presidency, I popped a note to my boss and asked him what he thought. His terse response was: “He’s a bad man.” My boss was always known as a man of few words. In this case, I don’t think even he imagined what Mr. Trump was capable of doing. And you thought Covid-19 was a problem.

I was speaking with one of our members this morning who emigrated to the United States from India. Although his immigration is more recent than our family’s (most of my ancestors came around 1914), what I repeated to him was what I was told as a young lad, that America is the land of opportunity. With enough hard work, everyone can make it here because of our democracy, and because Americans are always willing to help each other succeed.

For the past 25 years I have acted as volunteer Chairman of The FENG. It has been and continues to be a great honor to serve all of you. Although I am now 74 years young, I have no plans to retire any time soon. One of my little jokes is that I only work from 9 to 9:30 every day, but sadly that is not 30 minutes.

Bruce Lynn and Marty Latman who serve as Co-Chairs of The FENG have been with me almost from the very beginning. If I were able to create a catalogue of their many contributions and hours of sacrifice in your service, it would probably fill an entire library, and I’m talking about one in a major city.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention all of our volunteers who chair and co-chair our many Chapters and Special interest groups. I should also mention our very dedicated professional staff, all of whom have been with us for 10-15 years. Trust me, they aren’t in it for the money, yet without them, none of this would be possible.

Over the years, The FENG has taken our small contribution to the American Dream and shared it with members around the world.

In the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

So, I hope I can call on all of you to be positive in your relationships with your fellow members and with all the search firms and corporations who post jobs with us.

We WILL get through this together. God bless the United States of America.

Regards, Matt