At 47, Sandi Serling decided to start riding motorcycles. She is not an action junky, nor is she crazy, but her love of the motorcycle is palpable. On her 46th birthday, the self-employed P.R. agent jumped out of an airplane; halfway down, she thought, “I want to ride a motorcycle.” “To be successful in your work,” Sandi says, “You need to be a bit of a maverick.” Sandi uses motorcycles as a metaphor of what she does; the motorcycle is risky, much like self-employment, but risk is rewarded with great gain.

A vivacious extrovert, Sandi loves the attention she receives from riding, noting that her bike has helped land a, client or two. “If you’re not passionate about what you do,” Sandi warns, “You’re life is going to be miserable.” Passion is an important concept for Sandi, because as a publicist, she must be able to embody those things she represents. Success, in Sandi’s eyes, leaves no stone unturned, and no path unexplored. Sandi is in the process of exploring those paths, and judging the smile and constant laugh that accompany her, the exploration has been considerably joyful.

Keeping our promise in yesterday’s post, we will not be posting entries of interviews we conduct until we can include video with it too. But that doesn’t mean we can’t post interviews about Pursue the Passion, right? Here is an interview we did with Seattle’s Northwest Afternoon. There was even an audience there.

To this point, we’ve heard 23 different stories of how people have broken into the sports industry, and no story is the same. We have come to the obvious realization that there is not one standard path to get in! These sports stories are among the most entertaining that I’ve heard on the trip. I have a newfound respect for the people persistent enough to stick with their pursuit, all for the thrill of working in the sports industry. Marty Maloney is one such person. He currently works for his hometown team, the World Champion Chicago White Sox. It seems that his honest approach would make any sports team take a chance on him.

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Rule #1: do not call someone the wrong name; especially if they are helping you out while in town. Yep, this happened to me at the end of a great interview with “Monica” who I accidentally called “Melissa.” This small slip-up could have hurt our project a lot seeing as how Monica had been helping us out a lot in Chicago. Not only did she refer us to Jen Hankee and Rayne Martin for interviews, but she was also working to get our story published using her public relations expertise. The moral of the story: don’t mess up someone’s name. On to Monica’s story, which starts out at Purdue University, where she graduated and soon accepted an advertising job creating automotive ads. She put up with the job for a year and a half before she accepted a contractor position at Motorola doing event planning. The temporary gig led to a full-time marketing position where she worked on sponsorships and events with the NFL and ISF. More importantly though, she was able to gain great experience in the marketing field.

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Gary grew up in show business. His father was a press agent for big names like Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant, and many others. His father was one of the best in the business. He must had some clout to have his young son Gary be babysat by Marilyn Monroe herself!

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Lindy Williams is the Public Directions director for Reef Company in San Diego, California. Lindy attended the University of Arizona and graduated in 2001 with a degree in marketing.

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