Pam - The Early Years

Pam, I first met you 35 years ago, when I joined MMKA as somewhere around the 11^th employee of the firm (not counting Alex and Nicole, who at the time were the most productive consultants on the books, canine or otherwise). Even though you weren’t much older than me, you always seemed like the only adult in the place – Michael and Bob certainly didn’t qualify then. I often sought you out for just a little slice of sanity, and reassurance that I wasn’t utterly failing at my job. I actually think I was, but you could always spin it in a way that made me feel it was Michael’s fault for giving me poor direction. (I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean that, you just allowed me to think it, a kindness I shall never forget…)

When I think of you, I picture you in three places: at your wedding to Jay in Michael’s house (and I can still hear Michael belting out one of opera’s finest arias), on the softball diamond with your High Beta t-shirt on (didn’t we also have a team called Less Filling?), and sitting at your desk in the production room, working your magic on one of those old TRS computers and weaving those intricate cut-and-paste jobs that pulled together all those slides that I was always late in getting to you. It was truly one of the great artforms of the business world, long since lost to the PowerPoint monster.

The Kaiser I remember was a small group of smart, young, hard-working people (albeit oddly obsessed with where we were getting lunch on any given day). You always made sure we had fun too. So one last time, thank you for making my two years at Kaiser among the most enjoyable of my professional career. And congratulations on finally hanging up your spurs.

Now come visit us in Sonoma!

Paul Favaro

Consultant 2^nd Class

MMKA 1983-85