Phil Goldsmith has held senior positions in a broad spectrum of fields including law, journalism, business and government. Most recently he was managing director of the City of Philadelphia.
He is now a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, writing every other Wednesday and is a principal in GoldsmithKahn Associates, a public issues management consulting firm.
Tom Ferrick, the Inquirer columnist, boasted recently in his new blog that he was the last person in America to start one. Well, not quite.
I am following behind him and I have no doubt others will also
Why a blog?
I have spent a good deal of my adult life in positions that have involved public affairs.
I have been a City Hall reporter and editorial writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, a deputy Mayor for Policy and Planning in the Green Administration, the chief executive officer of the School District, acting director of Fairmount Park and most recently, managing director of Philadelphia.
I was a lawyer for the Justice Department in Harrisburg dealing with welfare reform issues in the late 1960s. And I was a senior banker at PNC for more than a decade where I was involved in public affairs with issues like community reinvestment while running major lines of business like branch and consumer lending businesses.
And as executive director of the Philadelphia Bar Association three decades ago, I worked on issues like better legal access for the poor and middle class. Even as a career transition coach, I witnessed first hand how public policy--or the lack of it--can disrupt people's live as their careers have become as disposable as diapers. Finally, as an executive recruiter, I learned the ingredients that go into hiring good people whether it be in the public, non-profit of for profit sectors.
Given my array of job experiences--some might say my job instability, I have a perspective that many might not have. And I want to be able to share that perspective.
I hope to shed some facts and insights from my three and a half decades of involvement in public, civic and business affairs in Philadelphia that might be helpful in our public discourse.
At heart I am a contrarian or, as one boss called me, an agent provocateur. And despite milling around the corridors of power where I have witnessed far too much muck on the walls, I am still an idealist.
I still believe that people when armed with the appropriate facts and energized by great leadership can come together in common cause.
The Managing Director's position was a 24/7 job and while there was much about it that I loved, I missed two things I highly value-- my time and my voice.
I now have more time.
And with this blog -- Philadelphia Perspective -- and a column published every other Wednesday in the Daily News, I plan to use my voice.
