Building a different kind of network
Former Lucent workers
move on to new
opportunities
Gloria Stravelli Former Lucent Technologies employees Maria Chou of Basking Ridge, Laura Jewell (center) of Fair Haven and John Haran of Sea Girt discuss career issues at a Global Networking Forum dinner meeting.
When she was laid off from her job at Lucent Technologies, Laura Jewell didn’t just formulate a business plan for herself. The former corporate marketing executive began a networking group as a resource for former employees like her.
Once her marketing business was up and running, Jewell founded the Global Networking Forum, a local networking group for alumni of Lucent and AT&T that meets monthly at McLoone’s Riverside Dining in Sea Bright.
"Somebody who has the skills I have for putting together events, for communicating with people, plus the marketing skills — who better to do this than me?" she said.
Jewell was working in the marketing department at Lucent Technologies in Holmdel when, after 22 1/2 years with the company, she was laid off in March 2001.
That was just three months short of being able to qualify for an early retirement option Lucent offered, which gave employees better pension and medical benefits. She was one of 10,000 Lucent employees let go throughout the country during a three-month period last year.
"I was the second wave," she said. "The first wave came in February, the second wave in March, and there was one more after that."
Within a few short months of being laid off, Jewell had taken a business start-up course, formulated a business plan, and founded her own marketing firm.
"I turned it around and started my own company, Jewell Marketing Associates Inc.," said the Fair Haven resident whose firm provides personalized marketing services to small businesses.
By July, Jewell had her first customers.
"I started off with just Lucent alumni as clients," she explained. "There are more Lucent people out in the world, out of Lucent and AT&T, than there are in it now.
"It was a wonderful opportunity to work with some of the same people I did before who knew my work," she added. "I provide resources for their start-up companies or the technology start-ups they’ve joined.
"I put together a marketing plan, help develop brand and messaging, and work with graphic artists, Web site developers, Web site host companies, and writers to get the right message out," she said. "I manage the whole project for them and help develop an entire marketing strategy."
While she broadened her network by joining several business groups, she also made it a priority to keep up her network of Lucent contacts.
"Some of them were working with other companies; others didn’t have jobs. I wanted to keep track of them and help them," she explained.
"There’s an incredible network of people," she explained. "Some have gone to smaller companies and now have responsibilities like chief financial officer. They brought all the expertise they had with them and are a bigger cheese in a smaller company.
"Then there are people like me," Jewell continued. "I took the marketing skills I had and started off on my own. Others went into something totally different — there are people who have become personal trainers."
Jewell’s list has more than 200 names and keeps expanding.
"Every time I send out an e-mail, I get more addresses, or I get a call," Jewell said.
Jewell stresses that the networking forum is not an employment service.
"I don’t want people to think it’s just for people that don’t have jobs," she said. "It’s also for people who are employed right now because they’re the ones who are going to be able to help others."
Jewell launched Global Networking Forum in January. The group provides networking dinners, and Jewell arranges to have Lucent alumni who’ve gone on to successful ventures as speakers each month.
"I really think people need to hear from people who have left Lucent and AT&T about what they’ve done to move forward in their lives," she said.
The networking forum is featured on www.jewellinteractive.com where photos of monthly get-togethers and a calendar of meetings can be viewed.
"I’ve worked with everybody in this room," Harry Bosco, former president of the optical group at Lucent, told a recent meeting.
Bosco, who retired after 35 years with the telecommunications company and its predecessors, is president and chief executive of OpNext, a fiber optic component firm based in Eatontown.
Bosco said his new optical component company drew heavily on Lucent for its leadership team. "Using the network made the start-up of the company very easy," he said.
"The No. 1 thing for anybody in their career is establishing a network. That’s the most important thing during and even after your career. It’s our family," he told the group, adding that three-fourths of the companies at a recent technology conference "are being run by people who used to work with us."
"We need to get the word out," Bosco continued. "There are 10,000 Lucent people out there. Probably 5,000 in this area alone, and they will be valuable when the market turns up."
A restructuring plan launched in January 2001 cut Lucent’s work force worldwide from 106,000 to 62,000 by year end. In July 2001 alone, 8,500 took the early-retirement package offered.
The restructuring was aimed at refocusing the company around two main market segments, wireline and wireless, to serve large service providers like AT&T.
The telecommunications equipment maker announced it would continue the cuts effected through attrition, selective layoffs, early retirement and divestitures to reduce that figure to less than 55,000 by June.
The head of Monmouth County chapter of SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) said many former employees have sought business advice from counselors.
"They want to know how to start a consulting business because that’s the closest to what they were doing – project management and consulting," said Juan Fret, of Freehold, chairman of SCORE Chapter 36, based at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft.
"It’s difficult to get these businesses going," Fret acknowledged. "They have skills, but how do you market those skills?
"They’re trying to buy a job — they can’t find a job, so they set up a small business, and in many cases that’s the wrong reason," he said. "The best plan is to transition from employment to a small business. But if somebody pulls the rug out from under you, you don’t do that kind of planning."
According to Fret, only one-fifth make a successful transition into their own business. The majority go through the motions of setting up a business plan but go back to the job market because they run out of funds, he said.
"Getting a job is very, very difficult," he added, noting that job postings currently bring in hundreds of résumés and employers cull those looking for buzz words.
Bosco reminded the networking group that the large pool of former Lucent and AT&T employees will be tapped when the economy rebounds.
"This network is very important to all of us because the market is going to come back. When the market turns around, … Monmouth and Ocean counties will have a tremendous pool of people to draw from."
Joseph Capasso, Long Branch, a Lucent employee for 16 years, concurred.
"We’re creating our own jobs," said Capasso, an organizing partner of Mosaic, an Eatontown fiber characterization service, where three out of the four founding partners are former Lucent employees. "The jobs we’ve done are with people we already knew," he added.
Stephen Barna, Chatham, attends the networking forum to find another company interested in taking new technology developed by his small startup, LightPath Technologies, to the next level. Barna spent 20 years at Lucent in research, network systems and sales, and said contacts from his former employer are widespread.
"There’s not a company I go into today that doesn’t have somebody from the Bell system," he commented. "When I joined AT&T, the company had 1 million employees."
John Allen had a similar networking story. The Lincroft resident worked with Bosco at AT&T/Lucent before taking a retirement package. Formerly manager of market communications for optical networking, Allen is now director of marketing communications for OpNext.
"I retired and got a call four months later from somebody I had worked with," he said. "She was doing marketing for OpNext and wanted to know if I wanted to come work with them.
"It’s the energy and excitement of a new startup, but with the technology base, expertise and knowledge of a 30-year-old company.
Jewell said word of the networking group is spreading and similar groups are getting started in other states.
"It’s great to network. It’s an opportunity to keep in touch, to keep your options open," she observed.
"That’s what I learned after I left Lucent. All we did was network within the company," she noted. "When you leave, you find there’s a world outside with resources for you, but you have to meet it halfway."