January 2001

"What you do is so loud I can't hear what you say."

Harry Sheehy, Director of Athletics, Williams College

Consider these profiles of accomplished leaders with integrity who achieved personal fulfillment through their deeds:

• Bobby Coombs gave up the longest home run Babe Ruth ever hit.
  He was a real gentleman who lived an invented life by serving as a college baseball coach and chartering his fishing boat out of Ogunquit, Maine. Coach Coombs created a memory years ago by introducing our two children to Maine one afternoon by calling his horse from the backyard, showing them how lobster pots work at Perkins Cove and entrancing them for several hours with baseball stories. Bobby Coombs made the world - and Babe Ruth -- better.
• Frank Boyden of Deerfield was the finest educational leader of our lifetime.
  John McPhee's book about Frank Boyden entitled The Headmaster should be read by anyone wishing to understand leadership based on principles. As one person with courage, Frank Boyden was always a majority whether meeting with the President of the United States, encouraging a new student at Deerfield Academy, or helping the people in his community. As a life-long advocate for human dignity and grace, he had the common sense to take the basketball hoops down when the season was over so "his boys" would experience another sport or activity as preparation for life.
• Russell Nunamaker kept the best one-acre lawn and garden in town until he was ninety years old.
  Russell was a farmer my grandfather hired to care for his home. He did everything -- mowing grass, pulling weeds and trimming hedges by hand, and grooming flowers to perfection until he died. When Russell and I watched the first landing on the moon together, he turned to me and asked, "Do you think God gave them permission to go there?"
• Frank "Pop" Barger was the tallest man I ever saw.
  The first time I saw Pop Barger was the day my parents sent me away at age 6 for eight weeks to summer camp in the Pocono Mountains while they went off on vacation. Pop's massive six foot, five inch, two hundred and fifty-pound frame was exceeded only by the range of a loud shrill whistle he made through his teeth and a booming voice. He used both frequently in commanding the attention and respect of boys and camp counselors alike. He crafted an environment in which young boys could gain self-awareness and self-acceptance while playing ball, learning to swim or handle a canoe or roaming dark woods in a game of "capture the flag." Pop created "doers".
• Mike Russo develops leaders who value effort, teamwork and sportsmanship through playing elegant soccer.
  Mike Russo has been named Coach of the Year four times in Division III soccer at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. In the past decade, he has won 85% of his games, including a streak of 47 consecutive contests without a loss, while producing 16 All-Americans and a national championship. Overlooking the soccer field at Williams College is a plaque in memory of one of his players which reads, "Run for yourself, run for your mates." Mike Russo exemplifies the finest in excellence in academics and amateur athletics.

Meanwhile, here is what we've been doing recently at InterSolve Group:

• Edward R.(Ted) McPherson, President and Chief Executive Officer of InterSolve Group, Inc., was nominated as a candidate for Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000 in Ernst & Young's Southwestern Region. While Mr. McPherson was not selected as a finalist, according to Ernst & Young his nomination "… was strongly considered and found to be of the highest quality." The Entrepreneur of the Year program honors "… those individuals and companies whose ingenuity, hard work, and innovation have created successful and growing business ventures."
• For the second consecutive year, Mr. McPherson also received in 2000 Special Recognition from the Outsourcing World Achievement Award program for his "…personal contributions to advancing …outsourcing as a means of helping companies improve performance, profitability and shareholder value." The Outsourcing World Achievement Award is sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Michael Corbett.
• Notable Client Successes in 2000
  • InterSolve Group, Inc. has been helping re-design and implement a 2.3 gigabyte data warehouse for a major company in the United States. The InterSolve Group project team included one of the leading practitioners of large-scale data warehousing in America as well as outstanding talent in assuring data quality in a complex computing environment.
  • Another large company has outsourced many of its senior human resource activities to InterSolve Group, including executive development, selective recruiting, and organizational development.
  • Illustrative of the wide-range of InterSolve Group projects is the firm's recent work in assisting a client launch a new line of business as well as re-design major operational processes.

  And so excellence comes in many forms by doing. With leadership, the best available talent, good execution, and speed from InterSolve Group, exceptional results become routine for competing effectively in today's business world!

  With best wishes for your individual and collective success as we head into 2001,

  InterSolve Group, Inc.