Brendan Murphy

Friday afternoon Pitt State Alum Brendan Murphy came back to visit his old school and he gave a presentation describing his life and his job as Lippincott in New York.

When I was sitting in the auditorium before the presentation I was expecting a guy in his early thirties and knowing he worked in New York City, I expected sort of a big shot, in a way. But he wasn’t, which was a pleasant surprise. He started by saying one his favorite sayings: “Nowhere leads to somewhere.” I can definitely see why this quote means so much to Brendan because he really did come from “nowhere.” He grew up in Ireland, didn’t do well in school, and only came to college because he was able to acquire a scholarship for track and field. So Brendan proved that nowhere definitely can lead to somewhere, but you must work hard to do it.

I was impressed by a lot of Murphy’s work. I like his new handicap sign better than the original one. I think he had good points in the reasons why he decided to make his own rendition of the symbol. It’s very big to have Wal-Mart take on the sign, and hopefully more and more organizations will do so too until it becomes the new standard. His work in reimaging the gas station I thought also looked good. I think the colors of their signs and building were yellow and orange and it looked cool. It was interesting how he showed the chart with all the color schemes the different companies use and I never really thought about having to determine your company’s colors to differ from other companies in the same field of business, but it makes a lot of sense.

An interesting point Brendan made was that if he could kiss anybody in his past, it would be his technical writing teacher. I was pretty disappointed when I heard that (lol!). I’ve never been a fan of writing, but I’m able to write a decent paper. But this information was very useful because now I know to go to class and actually pay attention when I sign up for the Technical Writing class next semester.

I learned a lot from Brendan Murphy’s presentation and it was fun to hear a real life success story about someone that went to the same school that I am attending. I will be sure to keep his words of wisdom, including “problem solving is an art.,” the importance of being able to communicate well, and to keep up with technology in order for me to become as successful as Mr. Murphy in my future.