My father, Clyde V. L. Pearson, would have been 100 years old in 2012. He was born on February 1, 1912, and unfortunately, he passed away in 1977, at the age of 65. He was a huge influence in my life and career. This is his story, and mine, too.

When I first started working in the office of the Joint Venture Architects for the Bank of America Headquarters Building in San Francisco, I found myself in the midst of 50 architects and interior designers, located in an office on the 20th Floor of the still-under-construction high-rise.

In 2011, I was honored when Randy Pollock, the Managing Editor of Marketer — the Journal of the Society for Marketing Professional Services — asked me to curate a very special tribute to Weld Coxe for the August issue.

In September 2011, I was honored to curate a special tribute to Weld Coxe for the August issue of Marketer — the journal of the Society for Marketing Professional Services. But I thought that I should tell one more story about how Weld changed my life.

Harvard wasn’t on my radar when I was growing up in San Francisco.

Maureen Broderick’s book provides a comprehensive look at the world of professional services firms (PSFs) from the point of view of its own top leadership — 130 individual leaders in 86 firms that represent “the top brand names in professional services”— accounting, advertising/PR/research, architecture/engineering, consulting, executive search, financial services, and law.

Yesterday, I noticed a new feature on the Gensler website — Cabin Class. Then a name caught my eye: Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting. And then the location: Southern California. I clicked through to the next page of the Gensler article, and sure enough, the project — EcoCabin —is “the initial step of a comprehensive master plan for Camp Emerald Bay, an 85-year-old campground on Catalina Island, 22 miles southwest of Los Angeles.”