feeling nostalgic

June 22, 2003

I bought a bottle of Physique hair mousse in the store yesterday and it made me nostalgic to track down people I worked with in the past. Why? Because I worked on the Physique advertising campaign before it was Physique. About 10 years ago I was studio manager of Lotas Minard Patton McIver, a small ad agency in New York City. The agency launched some new brands for P&G, including Incognito and Navy. We also worked on developing advertising for a product which P&G code-named BC-66. Our agency named it “Physique” and began developing the logo which looked very much like the logo of the product today. I left before the stuff actually hit the shelves, and I think P&G ended up launching it with another agency. I’m not exactly sure how it all ended up as I was long gone by then.

Anyway, thinking of those late nights working on BC-66 style boards made me wonder about the people I spent so much time with back then. Not to actually make contact with them, (although if I found an email address I’d probably drop a note and say hi) but just out of curiosity about what they were doing and where their lives had taken them.

Here’s what I found in my Googling. Maybe if these folks vanity search at some point they’ll find me and drop a note to say hi. Sad to say that there were many folks that I’d love to see what they’re up to, but I can’t for the life of me remember their last names.

Doug Turshen was the Creative Director at Family Circle magazine. I interned for the magazine in the art department my sophomore year of college (1987). I was about 20 years old and Doug was so cool and together. Very nice to me, and a good sense of humor. He just oozed style in a very casual, relaxed way. My strongest memories of him are as a devoted father. If his son called, my instructions were to find him no matter where he was, even if it was an important meeting. That impressed me. He was the original creative director of Rosie Magazine (that didn’t end well) and recently was named Creative Director of TV Guide magazine. I emailed him when he was at Rosie and he did write back and he remembered me! Oh, and Doug used to do photo shoots with this woman named Martha Stewart who I knew wrote decorating and cook books but as a college art student I couldn’t care less at the time.

Rosie McGuirk was the editorial assistant for Family Circle. She was a wonderful artist and a nice lady who kept her desk so messy that it made *me* look neat. It brought a smile to my face to see that she is indeed still an illustrator.

Lotas Minard Patton McIver became LMP/NY when partner Sally Minard left. This happened about a year or so after I quit because we were moving to Connecticut. At its biggest, the agency had about 60 employees and occupied 2.5 floors at Carnegie Hall Tower on West 57th Street. Unfortunately, they were forced to downsize as they lost some major business. It seems that Karen McIver is gone now too as it’s simply LPNY LTD from the most recent article I can find that mentions them.

Jacqui Lumer was an art director at LMPM. She was friendly and supportive and let me hang out in her office to smoke (I had a cubicle and smoking was only allowed in offices with doors). I was so lost when I started there, and Jacqui went out of her way to help me feel comfortable and part of the crowd. I was always grateful and I don’t think she ever knew that she helped me survive those first few months. Her boyfriend Jeff was one of the rare people I knew back then who was finding the emerging Internet as fascinating as I was (this was around 1993) and we’d talk about it a lot when he came up to see Jacqui. He was a freelance writer who wrote an article about Tetris for Wired that I remember he was very proud of. Jacqui and Jeff married and moved to California. It’s nice to know that she too has found domestic bliss and she’s now a mom. :-)
It was fun to see Carmine Coppola left LMPM and worked on P&G business at another agency. Interesting to note that one of the copywriters on this was also from LMPM.

I found some other people, including some account executives and business folks. That was fun. :-)

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