Newsletter Keeps Former Digital Employees in Touch
When Jan Bunker traveled around the country for Digital Equipment Corp., she had little time to herself because colleagues kept inviting her out to dinner, movies and shopping.
She’s no longer with DEC, but she and other ex-DEC staffers are trying to keep the culture alive.
Bunker runs a newsletter established to help laid-off workers adjust after DEC hemorrhaged jobs in the early 1990s. They look to it to keep in touch and to network--whether it’s to help find a job, recruit customers or ask advice about starting a business.
“It helps make that bridge to show there is life after DEC--people say, ‘If Charlie can survive, so can I,’ ” she said.
A former colleague lays out the 10-page quarterly. Another ex-DEC staffer does the mailing; another is a legal consultant.
Marcia Donaldson, who worked for DEC from 1972 to 1987, edits the newsletter. She also helps old co-workers by referring prospective customers to them.
“You know where to go to find people who are the most trustworthy,” she said.
Bunker said she gets calls from old DEC employees who want to know how to contact specific people. Other callers want the names of people who worked on specific projects.
“Part of the success of a lot of people at DEC was the ability to know people who could get things done,” she said at the 250-year-old house she and her husband are renovating. “Just because you leave, it doesn’t change.”
Ron and Julie Chestna, who spent a combined 37 years at Digital, turned a wine-making hobby into a wine- and beer-making supply shop in Holden, Mass. They consulted with ex-DEC staffers before opening the store.
Chick Shue, who ran Digital’s U.S. sales force before he left in 1989, asked 300 ex-staffers for seed money to open an Italian restaurant in Cape Coral, Fla. The DEC connection helped him get some of the $500,000 he needed.
“They knew who they were talking to. I knew who I was talking to,” he said.
Massachusetts-based Digital, still the second largest computer maker, began cutting staff in 1989. It reduced its payroll, now 60,100, by more than half because of a deep recession and its own failure to diversify into increasingly popular personal computers and other small machines. Technological advances also eliminated jobs.
Bunker started The Digital Alumni newsletter almost three years ago with 200 names culled from her Christmas card list and those of Digital friends. Now, 1,500 people pay $20 a year for four issues. Bunker said 80% of her business is in the Northeast, with the rest scattered in former Digital centers across the country and around the world. Bunker, who earned about $70,000 a year when she was a sales manager at Digital, said she has just begun to cover expenses.
Alison Phillips of Framingham, Mass., left Digital in 1993 after six years to spend more time with her children. She later started her own business selling children’s software, and used the newsletter to scare up customers. She said she plans to use the newsletter further to find software engineers to do contract work.
“People who started their own business also contacted me to see if I was interested in purchasing their product and services,” she said.
Ed Kramer worked for DEC for more than 20 years and now helps run Migration Systems Ltd., a San Jose software company. He said Migration tries to recruit ex-staffers for consulting work, and the newsletter helps.
“Consulting is always a very personal thing, and the client selects you based on his ability to deal with you,” he said. “If you know somebody, you have a much better idea of how the customer will react to them than if you don’t know the person.”
Steve Gutz founded Worlddata Corp. in Alton, Mass., four years ago and has contracted with about 30 Digital alumni, some of whom he found through the newsletter. He recently hired another ex-Digital worker to do promotional work and said he looks first to former colleagues when he needs something done.
“The real thing is they do quality work. If I experience quality work in the past with somebody, I would rather use them than somebody I don’t know,” said Gutz, who resigned from Digital to run his own business.
He said the newsletter helps him keep in touch.
“I love to hear about ex-DEC people doing well,” he said.
