Experience has become a hot-button issue in Hartford’s mayoral race, with incumbent Pedro Segarra accusing top rival Luke Bronin of lacking enough connection to the city to be able to lead it.
Get Instant Access to This Article
Subscribe to Hartford Business Journal and get immediate access to all of our subscriber-only content and much more.
- Critical Hartford and Connecticut business news updated daily.
- Immediate access to all subscriber-only content on our website.
- Bi-weekly print or digital editions of our award-winning publication.
- Special bonus issues like the Hartford Book of Lists.
- Exclusive ticket prize draws for our in-person events.
Click here to purchase a paywall bypass link for this article.
Experience has become a hot-button issue in Hartford's mayoral race, with incumbent Pedro Segarra accusing top rival Luke Bronin of lacking enough connection to the city to be able to lead it.
In last week's debate, Segarra pointed out he's been a Hartford resident for four decades, compared to Bronin who moved to the city with his wife in 2006. Segarra was insinuating that his long tenure as a Hartford resident makes him more qualified to make decisions that will benefit a majority of its citizens.
We disagree with Segarra's argument. While it's undeniable the mayor has longer, closer ties to the city, you don't need to be a nearly lifelong resident to diagnose the ills that plague Hartford: poverty, high rates of crime and unemployment, and an educational achievement gap.
Bronin, who is a Rhodes scholar, has lived in Hartford on and off for nearly a decade, which is plenty of time to develop a keen sense of the good, bad and ugly the city has to offer. The fact that he won the Democrats' endorsement in July over an incumbent within the same party is proof enough that Bronin has been able to connect with key constituencies in the city.
Rather than dwell on tenure, the focus should be on the issues and how to solve key problems like reducing gun violence in Hartford's neighborhoods or bringing more jobs to the city that can be filled by Hartford residents. At the end of the day, voters want someone who can solve problems, whether they've lived in the city for 40 days or 40 years.n
Keiler’s demise offers business lesson
Sad news surfaced last week when it became public that longtime Farmington ad agency Keiler & Co. shut its doors.
The sudden closure means Greater Hartford has lost its third largest advertising and communications agency, which listed 48 employees and $65 million in gross billings at the end of 2013, according to Hartford Business Journal's Book of Lists.
The firm, whose birth dates back to 1973 when it was founded by Richard Keiler, was well-known in the business-to-business marketing space, with a client base that, at one point, boasted such names as Deloitte and Clarcor.
What can be learned from Keiler & Co's extinction?
It's difficult to pinpoint an exact business lesson because the company's CEO, Lynn Taylor who took over in 2013, hasn't publicly addressed her firm's closure, but according to a report in Adweek, the company never recovered from the 2013 loss of one of its biggest clients, Lockheed Martin.
Steve Wolfberg, a principal and chief creative officer at Cronin and Co. in Glastonbury, was recently quoted in the media saying client retention is usually what does ad agencies in, but, of course, companies in most industries won't survive without maintaining their key customers.
Where Keiler seems to have gone off track was relying on a single company, Lockheed Martin, for a large part of its business. That, however, isn't uncommon for many small and midsize businesses that provide products and services to a small client base. The need to diversify, then, becomes the underlying lesson.
Just as investors look to mitigate risk by creating a diverse stock portfolio, employers of all sizes should strive to have a deep enough client base that can survive a rainy day. Losing a major client would hurt any business, but well-run companies should be able to pick up the pieces and move on.
