March 8 , 2005

You can go home again, even if it's only to visit.

Michael Abrashoff is coming home.

That isn’t necessarily big news. In fact, the Altoona native travels back to Blair County twice each month to visit his 83-year-old mother who still lives in the house in which she was born on Broad Avenue.

This time Abrashoff is coming home for professional reasons. He is slated to be the keynote speaker for “CIO Interact 2005,” an Information Technology Security & Business Continuity Conference to be held April 10 th and 11 th at the Blair County Convention Center. Mike’s topic will be Crisis Management – Preparedness Lessons Learned from USS Benfold. He was invited to speak by his former Bishop Guilfoyle classmate Tom Kristofco, the president of Blair Technology Group. In just its second year, the CIO conference has become one of the premier gatherings of technology and security experts in the northeast part of the country.

It has been Kristofco’s foresight and energy that have put the event on the map. Having Sheetz join as a founding sponsor, and getting the Hite Company, ABCD Corporation, Morefield Communications, Gleason Agency, Cisco, United Recovery Services, Windermere, and March Networks to come onboard as co-sponsors bolstered its credibility locally. To raise its profile to the next level nationally, however, required a blockbuster move. Kristofco had a pretty good idea what that move needed to be.

“We needed someone with name recognition as an accomplished speaker,” he pointed out. “We wanted one of the best.”

What he’s getting in Abrashoff, according to the Washington Speakers Bureau, is the very best in the nation.

“They’ve told us that he’s their most requested speaker,” Kristofco explained. “Without his local ties and commitment to this area, we’d have no chance of getting him.”

Abrashoff has spoken here before. Sheetz, W.S Lee and Wolf Furniture have each secured his talents within the past few years as a means of inspiring employees or rewarding loyal customers. This is his first local conference booking.

Abrashoff’s rise to the top of the speaker’s circuit came as the result of a distinguished military career. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he went on to gain fame for turning-around the fortunes of one of the Navy’s most challenging vessels, the U.S.S. Benfold. That ship had an auspicious reputation for low morale and high turnover.

Through a process that Abrashoff refers to as “GrassRoots Leadership,” he created the basis for a program of management and motivational techniques that would result in the publication of two highly acclaimed bestsellers, “It’s Your Ship” and “Get Your Ship Together.” He now lives in Virginia.

At a time when organizations like The Chamber are investing considerable amounts of time and money to keep our best and our brightest within the confines of the I-99 Corridor, the tendency would be to look at the stellar career of Michael Abrashoff as simply another shining star that, for one reason or another, chose to exit our galaxy.

Instead, it makes far more sense to look with pride at someone who lived here, learned here and genuinely appreciates the special advantages of growing-up in this community. Especially compared to the societal challenges of his current surroundings in suburban Washington, D.C.

“The neat thing about Altoona was how simple it was to grow-up here,” Abrashoff remembers. “I went to school a block from my home. I could ride my bike up to the Horseshoe Curve without worrying about danger of any kind.

“The small-town atmosphere lent itself to developing friendships. The values were strong and consistent. I don’t see those same things in the big cities.”

It’s a taken-for-granted perspective that many young people in Blair County cast aside and seldom revisit until they, like Abrashoff, get a hard look at the alternative. By then they’ve followed the allure of bigger and supposedly better. Going home becomes a concession instead of simply being the most logical thing to do.

Concession or not, there’s little doubt that many of the young people that Blair County has lost during the past decade are finding their way back. Abrashoff is not surprised.

“The pace of life in so many places is incredibly fast,” he noted. “We don’t have the rat-race here. There’s affordable housing and an economic climate that’s attractive to people in all walks of life. Altoona and Blair County are great places to live and raise a family.”

Despite our best efforts, retaining a population of eighteen-year-olds determined to see the world is as impractical as it is unfair. As we look at the people within our own communities, it’s amazing how many in prominent roles have at one time in their lives lived elsewhere. Somehow, some way, we manage to strike a balance.

People like Michael Abrashoff are tangible indicators that we are doing something right. Chances are great that there are others within our little village with the same potential. Whether we find them and keep them or just find them and watch them prosper somewhere else, it’s important that we do our best to encourage them, even as they take flight.

And if they come back to stay, so much the better.

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