Life in the Hereafter

If you are leaving or about to leave the Sentinel, the first thing you have to do is get your head straight. Years of working in newspapers may have left you thinking that is all you can do or that you have no marketable skills. Why is that? Well, the newspaper business, and some editors in particular, may have drilled it into you. Therefore, you have to be reprogrammed.

Take a moment to sit down and catalog your skills. You have many more than you think, beginning with writer, researcher, interviewer, editor, perform well on deadline, knowledgeable about (fill in the beat you covered), a fountain of community sources, etc. You'll feel a lot better after this exercise.

Someone was kind enough to send me a list of people who have successfully transitioned to other jobs/fields to which I have added new names. There are more people than you think. Here's a partial where-are-they-now list. I'm sure I've left tons of people out, so please add names if you like. I am excluding people who have moved onto other papers, since that's not the idea. To steal a quote from my source: There's lots of life to live after the Sentinel.

In no particular order:

Mike Griffith, Disney World corporate communications

David Porter, Disney Cruise Line

Sherri Owens, Darden

Marianne Arneberg, transportation issues

Doris Bloodsworth – self employed marketing / PR consultant

Sara Brady, VP at BrightHouse

Catherine Hinman, Morse Museum

Steve Vaughan, self-employed photographer

Diane Sears, freelancer for Florida Trend and book consultant

Jill Shargaa, owner, Shargaa Illustration & Design

Lynne Polley, former marketing artist, now does free-lance graphic design

Craig Dezern, Disney honcho

Lisa Lochridge, director of public affairs, Florida Fruits and Vegetables Association

Joe Kilsheimer, self-employed PR consultant

John Babinchak, CBR Public Relations

Loraine O'Connell, editor

Keith Wheeler, possibly at Disney