Career Move: Litigant to Lawyer
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Melilnda Sherwood and Baraa Fox were published in U.S. 1
Newspaper on November 10, 1999. All rights reserved.
PeopleSoft Enablers: The Peck Group Inc.
From processing financial aid forms to cutting faculty
paychecks, colleges and universities need sophisticated software
programs
and many are upgrading to PeopleSoft, the business network solution
software. Princeton University converted to PeopleSoft Financial last
year, and this year it hired two consultants to begin moving all human
resource and student administration information onto the PeopleSoft
platform.
Sharon Peck of the Peck Group Inc. at 711 Executive Drive in
Montgomery
Commons won the bid for the human resource, benefits, and payroll
implementation. Having recently completed PeopleSoft implementations
at Vanderbilt University and Cornell, Peck believes that PeopleSoft
is the only software on the market capable of handling the campus-wide
tasks of universities and colleges. “Running a university is
almost
like running your own small town,” she says. “They have their
own fire department, they run classes, they manage student living.
It’s the only viable student system out there and most of the
universities
are getting on it.”
From her home office, Peck started installing PeopleSoft for the human
resource department of corporations in 1993; Detroit Edison was her
first client. “They had 100 people working for them and now they
have 6,000,” she says. “I took a chance by assuming that they
were going to do well and that PeopleSoft would do well.”
Although she has an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson and 10 years
experience
in accounting, Peck is an artist by training. She grew up in Union
County (her father was a school teacher in South Plainfield and her
mom was a secretary raising six daughters) and earned her BA in art
from West Virginia University, Class of 1966. She taught art one year
before deciding a more lucrative profession was in her future. Peck
moved into accounting and payroll management, working for Home Life
Insurance, Ricoh, and Shindler Elevator Corp.
Peck started PeopleSoft installations for a company in Parsippany,
Data Study. She recently married a vice president for a Boston-based
consulting firm. Peck has two daughters, 28 and 32, and a son, 29.
While her peers work for large corporations, Peck opts to serve only
academe. “We made the switch over because it was a better
fit,”
she says. “We decided to go where we’re most needed.”
With only two staff members (an office manager and another
consultant),
the scope of Peck Group projects is limited to human resources
departments.
“Princeton wanted one consulting company to do everything,”
she says, “and they asked us to bid that way. I said I couldn’t
handle everything.”
The Peck Group Inc. also keeps its active client list short.
“Usually
I turn down work because it’s hard to find the right people and get
them trained. Your Arthur Andersens think they can take a bright
student
with an MBA fresh out of school, but it takes a combination of the
right experience, with the right training, and the right
personality.”
— Melinda Sherwood
The Peck Group Inc., 711 Executive Drive,Princeton,08540. 609-683-9876. Fax, 609-683-5080.Top Of PageFame to InfamyThis summer Daniel Goldberg had his 15 minutes of fame– photographed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange whenhis medical malpractice insurance company, MIIX, went public. Nowhe gets another 15 minutes, with a blaring headline in the Trentonian,”CEO Ran Posh Pot Farm.” The headline was in 200 point type(compared to 18 points for this story).On Saturday, November 6, police raided Goldberg’s Upper Makefieldhome and allegedly found a hydroponic garden of marijuana plants inthe attic. Goldberg, 52, was charged with manufacturing a controlledsubstance and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. EdwardWiest, 28, a resident at the same address, was also charged, and bothwere released on $50,000 bail.Goldberg is president and CEO of the 200-person firm that isheadquarteredat 2 Princess Road. He has been granted a leave of absence “forpersonal reasons,” said board chairman Vincent Maressa in astatement.Kenneth M. Koreyva, executive vice president, was named to assumeGoldberg’s duties.Last summer Goldberg was listed as receiving a base salary of $430,000plus a bonus of $475,000, additional compensation worth $123,331,and options to purchase 175,000 shares of stock, now trading at about$2 more than the opening price.Police seized his computer and he is under a temporary restrainingorder not to enter his house, located in the Pineville section ofUpper Makefield. If it can be proved the house was used as a drugdistribution center, Goldberg could be prevented from selling it.”We are fortunate to have a strong management team that allowsus to continue focusing on our business strategy without missing abeat,” said Maressa in his statement. “Our third-quarterresultsamply demonstrate our financial and operational strength.”The MIIX Group (MHU), 2 Princess Road,Lawrenceville08648. 609-896-2404; fax, 609-896-4905.Http://www.miix.com.Top Of PageCareer Move: Litigant to LawyerWhen the Middlesex County court system denied DavidPerry Davis custody of his newborn son, he pursued the matter –in law school. “I got shafted badly,” says the 33-year-oldattorney at 31 Jefferson Plaza. “The court was like `you’re thefather, your role is to pay child support, now go away’. I was soshocked by what happened to me in the system that it had become apart of my life.”A native of Rocky Hill, Davis lived in both New York city and Denverbefore returning to New Jersey for school. Davis’ father, Perry, isa retired advertising executive who teaches computer courses at MercerCounty College; his mother, Lou Ellen, is a novelist whose 1976 book”There was an Old Woman” was turned into a movie starringShelly Winters. Davis attended Rutgers College in New Brunswick, wherehe received a BA in history, Class of 1991. He had hoped to becomea history teacher. Then, in 1992, his girlfriend announced she waspregnant, and Davis’ life and aspirations turned dramatically.It was eventually revealed that the mother of his child had a historyof severe mental illness. Davis ended up fighting for custody of hisson, Timothy, in a system that he says once blindly favored mothers.”You have to have a decent attorney if you’re a male and you wantcustody of a child,” he says, “but if you’re a woman you canwalk into the courts you get custody.” With that injustice inmind, Davis set out on a crusade for father’s rights that landed himat Rutgers law school in Camden in 1993.Now a three-year veteran of family law, Davis has mellowed out a bit.”Working for the family court has moderated my views somewhat– now I can see both sides,” he says. Then again, the courthas gotten better at seeing both sides, he adds. “It’s taken longerfor the courts to realize that just as women’s roles have changed,so have men’s, and there are a lot of fathers out there that wantto be more than just a paycheck. There’s a much better chance of gettingshared parenting now.”In 1995, a year before Davis finished law school, a Mercer Countyjudge granted Davis sole custody of Timothy. Now a single father,Davis can say he won the fight, but he’s still committed to the cause:”I can take cases that I can put my heart in to; I wouldn’t ifI was working at some other mega-firm.”– Melinda SherwoodDavid Perry Davis, 10 Jefferson Plaza, Suite 31,Princeton 08540. Senior partner. 732-274-9444; fax, 732-274-2050.Home page: https://www.makingcontact.com/David P. Davis.Top Of PageDeathsA. Danforth Cope, 82, on October 31. He retired fromSarnoffLabs in 1984 and consulted for Princeton Scientific Instruments.Diane Leary, 54, on November 3. She had been a labor anddelivery technician at the Medical Center at Princeton for 25 years.Theodore Grover, 70, on November 5. He was a retiredproctor at Princeton University.James Douglas Elgin, 87, on November 6. A retiredadvertising director for Mobil Oil, he taught marketing at Rider.Diane Putala-Hepburn, 44, on November 6. She spent sevenyears at Peterson’s as an editor.Marianna Cimoch Markowski, 50, on November 7. She hadworked for Integra Life Sciences Inc.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
