On Second Thought - When I grow up -

Who better to help Maryland's high school students devise career plans than someone who watched helplessly as his own original plans - both A and B - exploded into shards of nonsense?

Just about anyone would be better, I think you'll agree. But that's not the way it turned out.

Putting some 100,000 kids across the state in serious jeopardy, the Maryland Business Roundtable for Education is partnering with The Daily Record and, by extension, yours truly to produce a magazine that presents scores of career choices and instructions on how best to pursue them.

The good news is that people who are smarter and in closer touch with reality than me put together most of the magazine, which is called Be What I Want To Be and is due out next month. The bad news is that I was called on to provide a written pep talk about the importance of charting a road map for the future. That's kind of like asking Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, who is irresistibly bonny and buff, for tips about how to get by in life as a frail ugly duckling (by the way, if anybody has any suggestions -).

Anyway, I managed to cobble something together that is truthful, but probably no more inspirational than a TV commercial for exercise equipment featuring Sen. Ted Kennedy in mesh tank top.

I said that I've stumbled into a great career, but that I still occasionally wonder whether I'd be happier doing something else and wish that I done a lot more hard thinking and consulted more people and resources back when I was in high school. And by occasionally, I mean every eight seconds. No, no. Just kidding.

Shortly after finishing the piece, I met with Bonnie J. Crockett, who, like some sort of big-brained Sherpa, led me unexpectedly to a place of enlightenment regarding career paths.

Crockett is executive director of Historic Federal Hill Main Street, which is one of roughly 1,600 main street programs across the country, one of seven in Baltimore City. The program was created in the late 1970s to help aging urban and rural main streets compete against suburban shopping malls. Now the competition is comprised of big-box stores.

By focusing on economic development and beautification in the area, Crockett has helped bring about a renaissance in Federal Hill just south of the Inner Harbor. Exasperatingly tight parking was alleviated by the construction of a parking garage. Chronically empty storefronts are being snapped up and turned into popular bars, galleries, restaurants, shops and even gyms (sorry, Sen. Kennedy). And, miraculously, a neighborhood that for decades lived in the very dark shadow of the much better known Fells Point has emerged as one of the brightest stars in the city, both as a place to live and visit.

For her effort and success, Crockett has won national attention, earning an invitation to speak at the main street annual convention last year.

I sought out Crockett this week because one of Federal Hill Main Street's major fundraisers, the Street Beat Festival, is just a few weeks away on Oct. 10. Seemed like a good time to write a true economic development success story that could be repeated throughout the city, the state and the country. But a funny thing happened on my way to fulfilling my goal. I got sidetracked.

In all my years as a journalist, I've never met someone happier than Crockett to be doing what he or she is doing. Her love for that job screams louder than the teen-age in-studio crowd at a taping of MTV's Total Request Live - TRL for those in the know, don't you know?

Here was somebody who must have developed a great plan in high school and followed it to the letter. That's the only way to explain how someone could love the very thing at which she's so good.

Nope.

Turns out there is another way.

Crockett didn't start college until after she'd had a son. It took her a decade to collect a bachelor's degree and a law degree. In fact, she graduated from law school at the same time her son graduated from high school. He didn't prove all that keen on the idea of have a joint graduation party.

For 10 years, Crockett focused on banking law, serving as general counsel for Loyola Federal Savings Bank among other things. Eventually she started a private practice from her home. In her spare time, she attended community meetings.

She quickly went from attendee to leader.

I couldn't keep my mouth shut, she laughed, as she does often and infectiously. They said, 'If you're so full of ideas, why don't you run this association.' So I said, 'okay.'

She said okay a bunch of times after that, working her way from volunteer, to various committee leadership positions to executive director of Federal Hill Main Street.

I was doing fine [in private law practice], but I just was not happy. I was bored, bored, bored with it, she said. I wanted a reason to get up in the morning. A stack of - loan documents in all fine print is not good enough. In fact that's enough to make you say, 'I think I have the flu. I'm going back to bed.'

So she spent more time working for her community and less time lawyering.

You can imagine how well my law practice was doing, she said, laughing again. I was like, 'Law practice? Who has time for that? I'm too busy working for free. I prefer to work for nothing.'

The executive director's position represented a severe pay cut for Crockett, but she didn't hesitate. I didn't care, she said.

Plans are vital. Hard work and discipline are crucial. But as Crocket reminds us, life doesn't always turn out the way we plan. With a little informed improvisation, it can turn out even better.

Now that's what I should have told those kids.

Copyright 2004 Dolan Media Newswires
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