Toni Reece: Hi there. I’m Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Tom Sheehan with me. Welcome.
Tom Sheehan: Hi. It’s nice to be here.
Toni: Well thank you. So Tom, take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tom: Well, I own a company called Tom Sheehan Worldwide, and we do marketing communications mostly for healthcare — hospitals, not pharma — and a lot of big companies. We’ve worked all over the world. It’s always something different.
Toni: Well, thank you so much for showing up for the Project today. Let’s go into the first question. What does inspiration mean to you?
Tom: Boy, that’s a broad question. Inspiration is a spark. It’s not an end. It’s not even a thing so much; it’s just something that happens. It takes all different forms, because people do all different things. But there’s a reason that you want to pursue something or you want to try something or explore an idea or a concept, and it means something to you. I suppose inspiration is a very personal thing and maybe the most personal thing.
Toni: Do you know when you’re inspired?
Tom: No.
Toni: No? All right.
Tom: I saw an interview with Bob Dylan on 60 Minutes a long time ago. Ed Bradley was doing the interview, and he was talking about Bob’s early work. It’s seminal work. It’s just unbeatable. Ed says to Bob, “Well, do you think you could do it today?” He said, “No.” It’s a fleeting thing. It’s a passing thing.
Toni: Well, how do you know if you’ve been inspired or not? Have you been moved to do things, or have an action orient about something that came from something that inspired you?
Tom: Well, there are motivators, which is different than inspiration, but you could get passionate about some issue, some topic and say, “I’m gonna do something about this.” It doesn’t even matter what it is. That’s more motivation than inspiration. Maybe there’s just this little, if you can imagine your mind as this dark hole and there’s a little spark there. Maybe that’s inspiration.
Certainly you’ve been inspired to be a good person by the people that you’ve known in your life, good and bad. I had a boss one time that one of the things that I said when I started this business is, “I’m never gonna be like him.” I suppose that’s an inspiration. Artistically. It’s not even a word I like.
Toni: You don’t like the word inspired?
Tom: No, because I’m not exactly sure what it means.
Toni: Okay.
Tom: You could be making a record or you could be writing songs for a movie. Everybody’s got a screenplay in their desk drawer. Were you inspired to do that, or did it just jump out and write itself down? I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth.
Toni: The way you describe it, it may be difficult to answer this next question, but we’re gonna give it a shot, okay? How do you put that feeling of being passionate about something, being moved to do something, how do you put that when it happens into practice here in Berks County?
Tom: Oh, that’s actually easier. The inspiration thing is a lot tougher. If you live somewhere, and that somewhere can be as tiny as your block or it can be as big as the planet, or I suppose it could be even bigger, although we have very little experience with bigger, but you have a responsibility to contribute. It’s not really an inspiration kind of a thing.
You see something that needs to be fixed and you have a responsibility. It could be you live on a block that is blighted. Well, you have a responsibility to go clean up the block. Sweep your sidewalk, paint your house, take the trash out — all that sort of thing. It gets bigger from there. You could say, “I want to do something about the educational system. I want to do something about access to healthcare. I want to do something about—”
Craig Poole is at the top of this list. “I just want to improve the community by offering people real jobs.” We did that at Lincoln Plaza 20 years ago, but Craig, he’s the poster child for that stuff. I think if you ask him, he’d say the same thing. It’s not an inspiration. It’s an obligation that if you have some ability, whether it’s intelligence or it’s just get up and go stuff, you have a responsibility to use it for good.
Toni: Okay. So, who in Berks County inspires you?
Tom: Craig does. The guy is a poster child for this stuff.
Toni: Okay.
Tom: I’ll tell you what is really the — and actually, I was just talking to a guy last week playing golf about this. So many people in this town, some of whose names you would know — Albert Boscov was one of them — who just worked tirelessly to do things, not for any personal benefits — well, I suppose the personal benefit is they felt like they did their job. You felt good about yourself that you did it, but there are so many. Kevin Murphy at the Community Foundation, he’s another poster child for making stuff happen. That’s what it is — making stuff happen. Rick McDougal is Rick Berkey’s partner. They do real estate development around all of Pennsylvania, but they have a lot here in Berks County.
There’s a Mexican guy that has a pizza shop at 6th and Penn. He makes the best cheesesteaks. He makes the best pizza. He inspires me. This guy goes to work every day. He just believes. His entire family works there. He just believes. He feels an obligation, obviously, to take care of his family and all that, but to be really good at what he does.
Toni: So something’s keeping him at the table.
Tom: Yeah. I’m sure it’s a need to. We all have to eat and we all have to support our families, but he doesn’t have to do it here. You know what’s interesting? I used to have a building, owned a building at 5th and Court. Big brownstone. Really nice place. I sold it in 2004 or something like that. My daughter said, “So, are you going to move out to Wyomissing?” I said, “No, honey. Somebody has to stay downtown. It’s gonna be me.” I’ve been down here, counting living in downtown, for 40 years; with the business 30 years — 30 years last month.
Toni: Oh my goodness.
Tom: And it’s changed. I mean, a lot of it’s not good, the change, but there’s still a lot of guys, they’re putting in the time. It’s not their job to put in the time. It’s just that they care.
Toni: So, Tom, what do you want your legacy to be?
Tom: That I lived to 150. Isn't that amazing?
Toni: 150?
Tom: It’s like Woody Allen said one time. He said, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work.” He said, “I want to achieve immortality by not dying.”
Toni: There you go.
Tom: You just want to be a good person and feel like that your kids like you. I’m not an “atta boy” person. I really don’t care what other people think about me or what I do or some project I’m working on. That really isn't it. But if I tell you I’m going to do something, I’ll do it, and I suppose that’s a good way to be remembered — that he did what he said he was going to do.
Toni: Fantastic.
Tom: But I like Woody’s response better.
Toni: I like both, I have to tell you. Thank you so much, Tom, for showing for the Get Inspired! Project today.
Tom: It’s my pleasure.
Toni: Thank you.
