One Person’s Influence
Going into the holidays, I could discuss shopping local or spending time with family, but this year isn’t normal so this article won’t be either. I want to talk about an individual in our community. This person could have possibly come over on the Mayflower or brought Jesus gifts at his birth and possibly witnessed the death of dinosaurs. This person has put us all in our place at one time or another. This person got a year older Sunday. I’ve been fortunate to work in and around 24 counties in our state and I’ve never seen a person care more about their community. A person who’s hobby and passion is witnessing and creating success in their community.
As I dig through old files at the office, I find telefaxes (must have been before my birth…) alerting a foreign company considering Morristown as their first US location that he has taken the liberty of firing their lawyer because they were working too slow. That company is now expanding for about the 5th time in Morristown. The rumors of his burning of the former national guard armory in town to allow space for the TCAT may be true, but he would never admit to it, nor should he. Workforce development was as important then as it is now. We always hear about our tax rate levels here and how they are so low. The credit to this is proper planning by our elected officials and one individual’s determination to encourage the commercial and industrial growth in our community so that business pays the bulk of the burden while the public enjoy the fruits of retail, commercial and industrial growth attributed directly to his work.
There isn’t a lot we can do to change the world impactfully, but what if we all worked as hard for our community as Jack Fishman has done for the past 60 years? I drove on the new 66 connector Friday. No, it wasn’t open and no, I didn’t care. We were told it should be open and barriers be damned, the Jack Fishman came out in me.