discovered that Rodney (Rod) Powell was president and chief executive officer of Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECO) through a photograph on a mailing in my electric bill. He seemed to appear without fanfare out of nowhere in January of 2005, sort of like the Clint Eastwood character in the movie High Plains Rider.  And, like the Eastwood character, Rod had a major impact on the players in his new haunts. Unlike Eastwood, however, Rod’s impact was real and he left a lasting impression before easing out of town as mysteriously as he had arrived. 

       My first encounter with Rod took place over breakfast at the Family Kitchen restaurant on St. James Avenue in Springfield, Massachusetts just across the street from his fourth floor office in Springfield Technical Community College’s Technology Park. He came off as unassuming, personable and as tough as one would expect a Black man to be who rose to the top in a large, predominantly White corporate environment. I knew that the now 57-year-old newcomer had a story to tell but I had no idea how difficult it would be to convince him to tell it.

       Rod shuns publicity. He told me that maybe one day he would let me tell his story but not then. And he conveyed the same sentiment time after time thereafter. And before I knew it, in January of 2009, five years after his arrival, with the same absence of fanfare that brought him to Springfield, Rod left town for a new top job in Berlin, Connecticut.   

       I recall a meeting in Rod’s WMECO office about a year before he left. He had asked me to publish an article about a colleague, Theresa Hopkins-Staten, who was spearheading the advance public relations for Northeast Utilities’ electrical upgrade project that would involve considerable construction disruptions for many communities in Western Massachusetts. Northeast Utilities is the parent company of WMECO, which provides electrical services to 206,000 customers in 56 cities and towns in Western Massachusetts. I interviewed Theresa in Rod’s office conference room and later wrote an article on her intriguing background and complex mission (Point of View, November 2007). Theresa later ended up serving on the board of Springfield’s Dunbar Community Center, a family and service agency to which Rod had provided substantial support during his years in the city. In a significant recent development, the execution of the plans for that upgrade project are about to begin this year and will provide jobs and contracting opportunities for Springfield residents and businesses. In fact, Northeast Utilities’ Cheryl Clarke was recruiting workers and contractors at a networking reception held on June 21 by the Greater New England Minority Supplier Development Council at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. I had hoped that my interview with Theresa and subsequent coverage in Point of View might give me leverage to convince Rod to do an interview with me. But Rod would still have none of it   Read More. . .

y initial contact with Samuel N. Wilson, Jr. was by way of Miguel King who delivers our Connecticut papers. Miguel met Samuel while dropping off the June issue of Point of View at his Bridgeport, Connecticut office and told me that Samuel was interested in writing for Point of View and that he thought Samuel might also be a good subject for a Point of View article. 

       Trusting Miguel’s judgment and his colorful and animated synopsis of Samuel’s history, I contacted him by e-mail and worked out an arrangement for Samuel to begin a column. Having secured his literary services, we next arranged for an interview. We met a few weeks later in his posh fourth floor office at 1000 Lafayette Boulevard, which is in downtown Bridgeport just down the street from Housatonic College. Walking into Samuel’s office I could not miss the Point of View newspaper rack containing the June issue sitting prominently just to the right of the entrance. It made me know, even before meeting him in person, that Samuel and I shared some things in common. “This encounter,” I said to myself, “is going to be fun.” 

       And it was fun. Samuel N. Wilson, Jr. is a certified public accountant (CPA) who specializes in providing a broad range of accounting services to churches. He is also a Licensed Investment Advisor Representative with MetLife’s Barnum Financial Group. And he is a born-again Christian who prevailed against all odds to rise from a childhood living in Bridgeport’s housing projects to becoming a successful businessman, proud parent and contributor to his community through his own nonprofit organization.   Read More. . .