Corrections or additions?
This stories by Peter J. Mladineo and Barbara Fox were published in
U.S. 1 Newspaper on March 25, 1998. All rights reserved.
Survival Guide
New Jersey firms have developed one-third (an average
of 31 percent) of all drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration
since 1992, and in 1996, 28 percent of the FDA-approved new molecular
entities came from New Jersey companies. These figures come from a
Coopers & Lybrand study of 13 companies sponsored by a relatively
new consortium, the Healthcare Institute of New Jersey. Including
all the services provided to these firms, the economic impact was
about $8 billion in 1996.
Established last year, the institute costs $50,000 a year to join
and is limited to firms with at least a billion dollars in sales.
“Our major aim is to raise the awareness, understanding, and public
support for what the research and pharmaceutical companies do in New
Jersey,” says William Tremayne, the institute’s president.
His institute members are among the chief providers of capital for
the smaller firms. Princeton area members include American Home Products
(owners of American Cyanamid on Quakerbridge Road), Bracco Diagnostics
on College Road East, Nycomed Amersham at the Carnegie Center, Bristol-Myers
Squibb, and Johnson & Johnson. Other members of the institute, based
at 100 Albany Street in New Brunswick, are Hoffman-LaRoche, Hoechst
Marion Roussel, Merck, Novartis, Schering-Plough, Knoll, Warner-Lambert,
Becton Dickinson, and Pfizer (Howmedica Inc.)
These members have 11 locations in Mercer County, 20 in Middlesex
County, and 21 in Somerset. Together, says Coopers & Lybrand, these
firms employed more than 53,000 workers in New Jersey in 1996, and
82 percent of them were state residents. With a total payroll of $3.2
billion, the average salary was $58,380 in 1996, and the total benefits
for both active and retired employees amounted to $610 million. They
contracted for more than $500 million in services and paid $220 million
to state-based vendors and suppliers of sales and marketing services.
(U.S. 1 statistics agree. Eight of the 25 largest firms in the U.S.
1 Business Directory are pharmaceutical or biotech related and they
comprise more than 16,000 workers, and more than 800 people are employed
in companies that service the drug industry.)
For more facts that buttress New Jersey’s reputation as a pharmaceutical
center call William R. Healey at the Healthcare Institute at
732-342-8442; fax, 732-342-8449.
Many of the smaller bio-tech companies are represented by the Biotechnology
Council of New Jersey, which charges from $500 to $3,500, depending
on company size. Call Debbie Hart, executive director (609-890-3185;
fax 609-581-8244) for details on the BCNJ, which calls this state
“the medicine chest of the world.”
It has its own report, “Bio-New Jersey ’97: Riding the Rollercoaster,”
presented by Gordon Ramseier of the Sage Group and Robert
Esposito of KPMB Peat Marwick, with details on how the New Jersey
biotech index outperformed the national average.
The BCNJ offers such options as a purchasing consortium (group discounts
from BioPurchasing and Fisher Scientific) and forums for the exchange
of information. Donald Drakeman of Medarex is the chair, Elizabeth
E. Tallett the treasurer, and the board members include Joseph
Mollica of Pharmacopeia and Thomas McKearn of Cytogen (both
on College Road), Ronald Pepin of Bristol-Myers Squibb on Route
206, and Burt Ensley of Phytotech at Princeton Corporate Plaza.
Though the name says “biotech” pharmaceutical firms may join
as allied members, and they get a vote.
But you do not need to be a research-based company to be an associate
member of BCNJ, and at the most recent “Breakfast with Bio,”
more than half of those present represented service industries (real
estate, engineering, chemical suppliers, recruiters, stock brokers,
public relations services, and attorneys) rather than executives from
the pharmaceutical companies themselves. Billings from professionals
like these make up a substantial part of that $8 billion impact.
Barbara Fox
Top Of PageManaged Care’sImplications
Feelings about managed care depend upon the eye of the
beholder. Patients distrust it, health insurers insist on it, and
for doctors, it’s either gold or kryptonite, depending on the perspective.
Vince Maressa, who has presided over the Medical Society of
New Jersey as executive director and general counsel since 1973, says
that the impact of managed care has hugely impacted doctors —
for better or worse. Maressa is a panelist at a conference at Rider
University, “The Changing Structure of the Health Marketplace:
Implications for the Management and Delivery of Care,” on Friday,
March 27, at 8:30 a.m. at Sweigart Hall. Call 609-895-5515.
“We’ve gone from a system where it was 90 percent indemnity insurance,”
says Maressa. “When you combine the HMOs and the indemnity companies
using managed care, there’s only about 10 percent that is not under
some sort of managed care program. This has produced dramatic and
significant effects on how care is managed and delivered.”
This has created a sort of Darwinistic survival scheme for physicians.
“Some people are adapting very well and others can not adapt,”
he says. “In my 30 years in the industry, this is probably the
first time that a physician faces a real potential of going out of
business.”
This is happening for two reasons, Maressa says. Number one, if a
doctor is not lucky enough to become a contracted provider in a managed
care network, the doctor may have a hard time finding customers. Number
two, the number of physicians has increased significantly while the
general population hasn’t. “When I first came to the Medical Society,
they used to talk about the physicians nationwide numbering roughly
300,000,” he says. “In New Jersey at that time there were
about 12,000. Now there are in excess of 25,000. The number of physicians
has doubled, the number of people in New Jersey has not doubled in
that timeframe.”
But like most oversaturated industries, the oversaturation is concentrated
in affluent regions, explains Maressa, 55, who has a law degree from
Temple University (Class of 1967) and started working for the 231-year-old
Medical Society of New Jersey immediately afterward. “There are
plenty of doctors around,” he adds. “They may not be in some
of the right places. I’m sure there are people in inner cities in
New Jersey who may be have trouble finding a physician.”
But as the number of physicians grows, the number of health insurers
is dwindling. “There used to be at one time the better part of
300 or 400 companies writing health insurances in New Jersey,”
Maressa reports. “I doubt today there are more than 50 to 100
of those companies. The paying side has shrunk down considerably but
each payer is larger and more aggressive than it used to be, and each
of them tries to leverage the provider end of the business.”
Consolidations are rippling through related industries as well. The
Medical Society’s affiliate, the Medical Inter-Insurance Exchange
of New Jersey, which provides casualty malpractice insurance for physicians,
recently made news when it started making preparations to go public.
This comes after more than 20 years of being underwritten by mutual
funds, and represents a trend being experienced by nearly all of its
competitors. “The nature of the business is they have to expand
their writing both by geography and by type,” says Maressa. “So
they have to raise capital. In this country there are 40 to 45 casualty
companies started by doctors to provide malpractice insurance and
many of them have converted into stock companies (from mutual funds)
because of the demands to raise capital.”
The March 27 panel includes John Gantner, treasurer of Robert
Wood Johnson University Hospital; Susan Reinhard, deputy commissioner
of the New Jersey Department of Health; Mike Doodson, vice president
of customer service for Merck & Company; Bryan Markowitz, director
of health affairs for the New Jersey Business and Industry Association;
and Amy Mansue, vice president of administration for HIP Health
Plan of New Jersey. The moderator is Hope Corman, an economics
professor at Rider University. Afterward there will be several workshops
held by other Rider faculty.
“One of the trends we’re going to address directly is the consolidation
and integration that’s occurring in the healthcare industry,”
says Anne Carroll, an associate professor of finance at Rider,
who organized the event and will present one of the workshops. “Doctors
want to unionize, hospitals are merging, doctors are merging together
to form bigger groups to better negotiate with managed care plans.
And managed care plans themselves are merging to get more market clout.”
“The issue that’s driving the whole theme are cost, quality, access,
and in the back of everybody’s mind is the aging population,”
says Corman, who ran a similar program at Rider in the autumn of 1996,
at the height of the national healthcare debate. She noticed then
that there was an almost unanimous reverence of change. “What
we were discovering in 1996 was just how much things were changing,
how quickly they were changing and how much more important it is for
everybody in the industry to become actively involved with getting
information and keeping abreast of all the changes.”
“Everybody pretty much agreed on what the issues were — cost,
quality, and access,” says Corman. “But nobody’s denying that
the problems don’t exist. What people disagree on are the priorities.”
Rider has made it a priority to provide career support for its hordes
of students already working in the pharmaceutical industry. Rider
offers a new healthcare concentration within its MBA program and a
new undergraduate minor in health administration.
Peter J. Mladineo
Top Of PagePharmaceuticalOpportunities
Here is yet another opportunity for students to get
on board New Jersey’s lucrative pharmaceutical career bandwagon: Study
pharmacy via the 2+4 Pre-Pharmacy Program, a joint venture between
the Rutgers University College of Pharmacy and the Camden College
of Arts and Sciences. Students admitted to the program in the fall,
1998, semester begin their course at Rutgers Camden. Upon completion
of first and second-year pharmacy curricular requirements, they are
guaranteed admittance into the doctor of pharmacy program at Rutgers
College of Pharmacy, on the Busch campus in Piscataway. This six-year
program yields the PharmD assignation, the only degree now given by
the College of Pharmacy.
Applications for the program are still being accepted; the program
will accept 20 to 25 students. Call 732-932-4436.
Top Of PageAttracting the Media Glare
For anyone who ever wants national press coverage
on any topic, the lineup at this “meet the press” breakfast
at the Hyatt was impressive — reporters and editors from the three
biggest news providers worldwide: Associated Press, Bloomberg News,
and Dow Jones News Service.
Those who came to the March 11 breakfast, sponsored by the Biotechnology
Council of New Jersey, thought they were going to learn how to place
pharmaceutical and biotech stories. They did, but they also got a
fascinating peek into the intricate world of global media, and the
tips they received can serve as a PR primer.
The overall message from all three news services was — when in
doubt, call. When in doubt, ask. “We are constantly looking for
ideas,” says Darrell Delamaide of Bloomberg Financial Services.
“Journalists are in the business of telling stories. We welcome
phone calls pitching a story.”
The AP and Dow Jones reporters are particularly interested in trend
stories, while Dow Jones and Bloomberg focus mainly on publicly held
companies.
Minutes count with rolling deadlines. AP’s first deadline is at 10:25
a.m., and the story can get longer as the day goes on. Similarly,
Bloomberg prints some version of a big story right away then adds
to it and edits it for the rest of the day, and by the end of the
day it is supposed to be finished or “camera ready.”
Those cameras, nevertheless, belong to other newspapers, since Bloomberg
has no daily print paper of its own. “Our ambition is to be an
electronic newspaper with the type of report you would find in the
New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. This seems to be the medium
for the 21st century,” says Bloomberg’s Delamaide.
Delamaide returned last fall to the United States after 20 years overseas
(10 in Paris, 10 in Frankfurt), where he had covered international
banking and finance for AP-Dow Jones, Institutional Investor, the
International Herald Tribune, and Bloomberg. An alumnus of St. Louis
University, Class of 1971, he has a master’s degree in international
affairs for Columbia, and is married to a German-born journalist,
Veronika Hass.
The corporate part of Bloomberg’s health care reporting is handled
from Princeton, but financial markets are covered by the New York
office, and the Washington, D.C., office would do the government and
economic angles.
Bloomberg downloads audio clips to its “Bloomie” terminals
so a speech by Alan Greenspan or a pharmaceutical CEO can be heard
complete, with all the inflections and innuendo, without the editing
and interpretation that any print version would give. Not being live
has an advantage: You can call up the digital archive at any time.
Most press releases arrive electronically from one of the two major
PR wire services, PR Newswire or Business Wire. “Calls are the
most effective way to find out if there’s any interest, and that can
be followed up by the fax,” says Delamaide. If you don’t call,
half the day may go by before your fax reaches the right desk. “Our
feeling is, by now, that the fax is too slow for us. We have a whole
desk of people monitoring the wire minute by minute.”
Jennifer Fron Mauer, based in Jersey City, has a master’s degree
from Columbia and five years experience with Dow Jones, most recently
as the transportation reporter.
Unless you plan on giving Mauer an exclusive, don’t expect Dow Jones News Service
to honor your press release’s request to print a story
on the date you choose. Such a request, called an “embargo,”
can cause all kinds of journalistic mayhem. “We do not accept
or honor embargoed press releases,” she says.
In contrast, AP does work with embargoes. “PR people let me know
about something weeks in advance,” says Linda A. Johnson,
the science and medicine reporter at the Associated Press in Trenton.
In fact, if you want your story to get good AP coverage, schedule
the press conference at a time convenient for Johnson. If your firm
has a division in another city, include that in your press release
so AP can alert that city’s paper.
Along with a release send a complete press kit with company information,
including officers, owners, short-term and long-term research goals,
subsidiaries, products on the market, and home phone numbers for a
PR person. AP needs negatives or digital photos. No print photos.
“I like to see every release, and I keep voluminous files, but
we are writing for the general public and I am looking for the bigger
stories,” says Johnson. Don’t expect her to write about routine
management or board changes, or early clinical trial results, or a
small company’s earning statements. Do call her about final FDA approvals
and give a couple of days notice on research to appear in a major
scientific publication, to give her time to assemble expert opinion.
“Pick and choose something really good,” says Johnson, “and
tell me in advance so I can get it up early in the day.”
Success in placing a story is not just luck, it’s know how. The trio
agreed on these tips:
Be clear. Mauer warns that Dow Jones’ Jersey City newsdesk has 50 people processing faxes and writing short (three paragraph)news stories. These reporters are probably just out of college anddo not have medical backgrounds, so don’t depend on jargon or acronyms.Be there, says Mauer. Don’t issue a press release whenyour public relations person is about to go on vacation. Provide nightnumbers. To protect against your competitor sending a false fax, DowJones must verbally confirm every fax it receives, so if your contactperson is not available, it won’t run. And AP’s Johnson warns, “Ifyou put out a release at 9 a.m. and the medical officer is not availableuntil 3 p.m., I might pass on it all together.”Don’t bury bad news at the bottom of the press release.”We see ourselves as agents of the shareholders,” says Delamaide.”Our job is not to put your story across. The goals aren’tnecessarily always the same.”Know what you are talking about. “I can tell whensomebody is reading off a piece of paper and doesn’t know the subject,”says Mauer. Your information will be up on the wire, so don’t guessabout answers you don’t know. Be correct or say you will call back.Be prepared. Have basic and background information readyso you can fax it right away when a reporter calls, says Johnson.Be ready with quotes, think of analogies in advance, and also thinkahead about the ramifications of your announcement. What will it meanto your Aunt Tessie?Send your less important stories to the right place: Forthe AP, fax to the Daybook (see below). For Dow Jones, fax to SpotNews. For Bloomberg, a PR news service is preferable to a fax.Give advance notice of your big story. “If FDA willmake an announcement next week, talk to me now,” says Mauer, “soI’ll be able to write about it with some intelligence.”Leave short voice mail messages. “Anything longerthan a half-minute, I delete,” says Delamaide.John McWilliams of PR Newswire (212-596-1500; fax, 800-793-9313)introduced the speakers:Bloomberg Financial Markets, 100 Business Park Drive,Box 888, Princeton 08542-0888, news phone 609-279-4000; fax, 609-497-6577.Darrell Delamaide, editor, extension 4071, E-mail ddelamai@bloomberg.com”>>ddelamai@bloomberg.com .Don’t call after 4 p.m., and his least busy time is from 11 a.m. to1 p.m.Kerry Dooley (extension 4016) is responsible for drugs and biotech,and Marion Gammill (extension 4097) does health care and medicaldevices. From the District of Columbia Kristin Reed and KristinJensen (yes, the same first names) cover the Food and Drug Administration(202-624-1820) and Paul Heldman reports on Medicare and healthpolicy. From California Jim Finkle 415-912-2960 writes aboutbiotech and health care and occasionally contributes to the “TakingStock” column.Associated Press, 50 West State Street, Trenton 08608,609-392-3622; fax, 609-392-3525. Send one fax to the AP Daybook anda second copy to Linda A. Johnson, the science and medicinereporter.John Hendren in New York works on the financial aspects of pharmaceuticals(mergers and acquisitions) and Lauran Neergaard (202-776-9467)covers FDA issues from D.C. Fax first, then call from 10 a.m. to 7:30p.m.Dow Jones News Service, Dow Jones & Co., Harborside FinancialCenter, 600 Plaza Two, Jersey City 07311-3992. Pete Rooney, newseditor for spot news, 201-938-5161; fax, 201-938-5600. JenniferFron Mauer (pharmaceutical and biotechnology) 201-938-5287 andLouis Hau (medical devices and HMOs) 201-938-5240; fax for both,201-938-5060. FDA matters, Otesa Middleton in Washington, 202-8622-6654;fax, 202-223-8039. The best time to call is after 4 p.m.Barbara FoxTop Of PageArt SmartsWhat can you expect from an art director that you wouldn’texpect from an artist? For one thing, says Russell Carley, recentlyappointed art director for Stonehouse Media, the art director willtry to please you as much as himself.And despite his years spent trying to please a canvas, Carley hasdeveloped acute sensitivities for pleasing customers. “A big thrustof art direction is that you not only want to please the client, butyou want to make sure that the client has a good product,” hesays. “We take it upon ourselves not only to please the clientbut to stand behind our work. That’s a very important thing, too,in terms of art direction.”Carley is a panelist at the Moving Image Professionals meeting, “TheArt of Art Direction” on Wednesday, March 25, 6:30 p.m. at thePalmer Inn. The other panelists are Gary Radin, a productiondesigner for Acme Industrial, and Beverly Littlewood, a freelanceart director. The moderator is Tracy Anderson. Call 609-716-1737.Carley lived out the artist’s dream in his youth; living poor andpainting during his 20s and 30s from a loft on the edge of LittleItaly. For a time he lived above a young unknown actress named JessicaLange, and Carley says that for those 18 years in Manhattan heaccumulated stories “enough for three men and a small boy.”In the early ’80s he switched his profession to the more lucrativegraphics and television industry. His first corporate job was forABC Television, which was “just at the beginning of the graphicsexplosion.” Since then he has been freelancing within the graphicsarena and for the last 10 years he has been living in Jersey City.Stonehouse, which does website and CD-ROM work for Fortune 500 companies,small production firms, and the government from its 4390 Route 1 headquarters,hired him six weeks ago to expand its graphics and animations capabilities.”Art direction can serve many functions,” he says, “butwe bring the same set of standards to bear on all of it.””The object is for both sides to make sure we’re all on the samepage or wavelength. We want to know how to present this project. Whatemotions, what feelings, what ambience. As an art director, I dealwith graphics, image, and animation. I would want to make my graphicsconform to that idea, even choosing a font.”Bearing in mind the emotional links between human beings and art,it’s also necessary to “try to circumvent unreasonable prejudices,”Carley says. “What you want to do as an art director is keep inmind the end result and use whatever means is at hand to produce anend result. It’s really the end result that counts, not the means.If it works with different colors, then it works. There’s always dialoguewith people in trying to resolve these issues.”As Carley notes, art direction smacks a little of the Rembrandt school.”In art direction, you’re not producing, you’re just directing,”he says. “How are you going to invent, not what are you goingto invent. To get that tone that’s necessary, where it’s light orfast and breezy, or slow and lyric. Everyone has to know what thepurpose of this product is going to be.”When we ask whether he fit the stereotypical image of the pony-tailedart director, Carley, 58, surprises us: no ponytail. “I guessart directors come in all shapes and sizes,” he says. “I probablylook more like a banker than an art director.”The transition from the Bohemian artist’s life in Manhattan to a graphicdesign expert commuting 160 minutes per day from Jersey City is nottaxed with bitterness. “I may have done some things I wish I hadn’tdone but I can honestly say that I did all of the things that I wantedto do.” It must be a good commute.Peter J. MladineoTop Of PageAcing the AngelInvestmentTrying to find a venture capitalist for a small start-upis about as tough as finding a Beltway insider who doesn’t want abook deal. So the small start-up must find the angel investor instead.Of course, finding the angel investor is similarly snaggy.But now small companies seeking up to $1 million in equity capitalcan now have their escort to the angels. It’s called ACE-Net, an Internet-basedsystem that lists the profiles and prospectuses of companies seekingcapital for accredited investors to peruse. The service is developedby the U.S. Small Business Administration’s office of advocacy. Ona state level it’s being administered by NJIT’s Enterprise DevelopmentCenter. The information will be stored on a database at NJIT.The system is password-secured and costs $450 for the companies andthe angel investors to join. Companies asking for less than $1 millionwill be eligible to use the short form, which is being adopted bythe securities regulators in 15 states. New Jersey is not one of themyet, but it will be implemented in this state shortly, says LouGaburo, assistant director of the NJIT Enterprise Development Center.A kickoff meeting at NJIT is being planned for Thursday, April 30,although no details have been set. The system is expected to be operationalin May or June, Gaburo adds.ACE-Net is one of many programs to be discussed at the New JerseyEntrepreneurial Network’s meeting on leveraging New Jersey resourceson Wednesday, April 1, at noon at the Forrestal. Call 609-279-0010.Stash Lisowski, the director of the NJIT Enterprise DevelopmentCenter, will provide the ACE-Net discussion.The meeting is cosponsored by the Technology Help Desk and Incubatorof the NJSBDC, U.S. 1 Newspaper, and Business News New Jersey, andfeatures a panel with Gail Eagle of Gail Eagle Custom PublishingAssociates, a home-based business at 3 Rosemary Road in East Brunswick,and Henry Wojtunik, president of Anacom Systems, a developerof fiber optic equipment in the 100 Jersey Avenue incubator in NewBrunswick. Anacom recently received a $1 million order from a Koreantelecom manufacturer and is in the midst of a sizable expansion, saysWojtunik.Nearly 20 other organizations that help small business are sendingrepresentatives to the meeting. These include the Mercer County CollegeSmall Business Development Center plus the SBDC’s procurement andinternational trade programs, the MIT Enterprise Forum, the New JerseyEconomic Development Authority, the New Jersey Technology Council,New Jersey Institute for Technology’s Enterprise Development Center,Princeton University’s Center for Photonics and Optoelectronic Materials,the Rothman Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies, the Princeton PlasmaPhysics Laboratory, the Stevens Technology Ventures Business Incubator,and the United States SBA Loan Guarantee Program, represented by PrestigeState Bank.Attendees will also get a guide profiling 35 different business developmentprograms.Top Of PageTrading UpGet a crash course in international trade at the PrincetonChamber’s TradeWorld ’98, “Global Trading for 2000 and Beyond,”a forum and exposition set for Monday, April 6, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.at the Marriott. The event features Gualberto Medina, statecommerce commissioner; Stephen Kukan of Prosperity New Jersey;and John Clancy, of Sea-Land Service Inc. The cost is $125 (includingbreakfast, lunch, and reception), and you can display materials fromyour company for an additional $125; booths cost $400. Call 609-520-1776.Medina opens the forum at 8:40 a.m., Kukan speaks at 12:15 p.m., andClancy speaks at the 4:15 p.m. reception along with John Wiegandof Screen Printing USA.Carlos Kearns, director of the state Division of InternationalTrade, will chair a 9 a.m. panel with trade representatives, includingSergio Hidalgo, trade commissioner of the Mexican Foreign TradeCommission, Michael Baume, consul general of Australia; andthe deputy consul and trade commissioner of Canada. Other countriesto be represented are Belgium, Argentina, Indonesia, Switzerland,Hungary, and Chile.Concurrent 10:30 a.m. sessions include one on trading and distributionwith Laurence Harper of Ballentrae International, JonathanPlimpton of International Business Management, and Steven Richmanof Gallagher Briody & Butler as moderator (Richman chairs the committeefor this event). Robert Riley of Ward Associates moderates alogistics and transportation panel “In/Out/And on Time”that includes Bonnie Rainey-Wright, of Airgroup Express anda representative of Unz & Company.Hidalgo, Paul Holland, vice president of PNC Bank; and RobertCrook, vice president of CoreStates Bank will give a 1:45 p.m.seminar to “demystify international banking for the American businesscommunity.” Concurrently Takako Lento of InterComm Inc.moderates “Team Building — How to Deal Effectively with Peopleof Different Nations,” with John Bing, president of ITAPInternational, and Stephen Smith of Novartis PharmaceuticalCorp.At 3 p.m., Gregory Chow, Princeton University economics professor;Henry Raimondo, a Rutgers professor at the Eagleton Institute,and Ingrid Reed, director of Eagleton Institute, will discussthe implications of overseas economic conditions.Also at that time is “Making the Marriage Work, a workshop onjoint ventures and partnering, moderated by Dorothy Carmalis,recently retired from the state division of international trade, includingMario Brossi of Switzerland, Donald Marsan of Canada,and Edward Burton, deputy director of the state’s internationaltrade division.Top Of PageSearching PolishIf you had held the same job for 20 years, your jobsearch skills may be rusty. Job seekers can sign up for free week-longworkshops sponsored by the Jewish Family & Children’s Service of GreaterMercer County.Ten people in managerial, technical, or professional fields can attendthese workshops taught by specialists from the New Jersey Departmentof Labor at the JFCS conference wing, 707 Alexander Road, Suite 102.The program is open to the public and is free (thanks to a grant fromthe United Way of Greater Mercer County) but preregistration is required.To register call John F. O’Halloran Jr. at 609-987-8100.The program runs Monday to Friday, March 30 to April 3, 8:30 a.m.to 4 p.m. Spouses may join program participants at presentations onFriday that deal with consumer credit counseling.Top Of PageLong Line LearningTwo years ago, when “distance learning” wasstill fairly new, Peterson’s Guide published its first Guide to DistanceLearning. Also two years ago in March, Jennifer Guy startedher MBA via computer from the University of Phoenix (U.S. 1, July31, 1996).Guy is now just finishing her last course to complete her degree,and Peterson’s has just come out with its second Guide to DistanceLearning ($26.95). At the time Guy wrote her article, her mother opposedher choice, but this learning mode has gained much wider acceptancenow. In fact, so many colleges have joined the distance learning paradethat the latest edition, at 636 pages, is considerably fatter thanthe first.Guy’s article compared Phoenix with New Jersey’s distance pioneer,Thomas Edison State College. The current Peterson’s lists programsfrom nine of New Jersey’s community colleges plus such four-year institutionsas Caldwell, Fairleigh Dickinson, New Jersey Institute of Technology,St. Peter’s, Seton Hall, and Stevens Institute of Technology. It listsmore than 800 institutions offering 237 associate degrees, 285 baccalaureatedegrees, 442 master’s, 33 doctoral programs, plus undergraduate andgraduate certificate programs.Along with tips on how to find study and find the right program, theguide is enlivened by thumbnail sketches of students and their experiences.About 80 colleges chose to participate (one assumes they paid forit) in a special section with extended descriptions. To complementthe guide Peterson’s will launch an online database at https://www.LifeLongLearning.com.”It’s been a long road, but to be able to work whenever I wanthas definitely made a big difference,” says Guy. “And my motherno longer thinks I am getting my degree on a matchbook.”Corrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
