10 Year Perspective: Michael Goodman

It’s PHM’s 10 Year Anniversary and we are reflecting on a decade of innovation and growth — and the people that got us here. 

We asked some of our most-tenured employees to reflect on this past decade, to share memories of in-office fun and most of all, why they chose health 10 years ago and why they continue to do so.

Read on for more thoughts from Michael Goodman, GVP, Investment Operations.

What do you enjoy most about working at PHM? 

As cliché as it is to say, it’s really the people. At my prior agency, I had “work friends” – we’d go to happy hours and partner events together and then everyone went their separate ways. When I moved to Philly and started working at PHM, my colleagues became, and still are, my “friend friends.” We play golf, have been to each other’s weddings, go to our kids’ birthday parties … there is no distinction anymore and that’s what I enjoy most. I get to go to work with my friends every day.

Any fun anecdotes or memories from this past decade?

There are a bunch, but there are two that stick out.  

Before we started using Outlook, we used Lotus Notes for email. I am positive this was a glitch and nothing that I did, but I somehow sent an email to the entire Publicis global distribution. Because it was right before the holidays, I got thousands of out-of-office replies from around the world and had just about everyone in the office at the time ask me if I realized I sent an email to the entire company. To this day, I still quadruple-check the “to” and “cc” fields when I send an email to make sure that it is going only to the people it is intended for!

For a while, I did quite a bit of travel to San Francisco to meet with clients. When we were done with meetings, the team usually tried to plan something fun to do before our trip home. One of these times, we decided to go to a San Francisco Giants game. We had great seats in left field, but around the fifth or sixth inning I decided to go buy a souvenir for my daughter who was maybe six months old at the time. I spent quite a bit of time at the store debating whether to get her a stuffed animal (Lou Seal) or a rubber duck. Upon my return to the group, everyone looked at me and said, “You are not going to believe this … while you were gone, Brandon Phillips hit a home run that literally hit your seat!” Everyone made it on TV, and there was a great shot of my teammates ducking out of the way and missing the catch. In all my years going to games, I had never caught a foul ball or home run and that was my chance. I arrived back home with no baseball and to top it off, the stuffed seal I chose made my daughter, Hadley, cry!

You chose health 10 years ago, why do you choose health today? 

Health is unique in that it impacts everyone — whether they like it or not. I chose health 10 years ago because even though I wasn’t on the front lines, I felt that even the small part I would play could help someone down the line. I am proud to have put myself in a position to continue to choose health 10 years later because these last few years have proven out that belief. It has shown us that everyone does, in fact, have a role to play.

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn.

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