5 NH business icons gather for June 6 panel talk at the Rex Theatre
How do you harness the collective energy, experience and wisdom from five of New Hampshire’s most iconic leaders?
That’s on me, and I better have a good plan because it’s coming soon.
On June 6, I’ll be moderating Leadership Unscripted, a forum that runs from 8 to 11:30 a.m. at the Rex Theatre in Manchester.
Our panel features five familiar names, and it’s a safe bet they’ve never shared the stage:
Jack Middleton, president of McLane Middleton; Keri Laman, president of Tidewater Catering Group; Dwight Davis, president of Senior Helpers of Southern NH; Maureen Beauregard, president and CEO of Easterseals NH & VT; Gary Hirshberg, co-founder and chief organic optimist at Stonyfield Farm.
NH Business Review had the venue booked before we recruited the panel. But everyone we asked to participate said yes, for which we are truly grateful.
For this column, we talked with two of our panelists to give readers a preview of what’s to come.
It didn’t hurt that the first person we recruited for Leadership Unscripted was Jack Middleton, the namesake of the Manchester and Woburn, Mass.-based law firm, McLane Middleton P.A.
After I attended Middleton’s 95th birthday at the DoubleTree hotel in January, I knew Middleton would be my first call. Here’s a guy I had met only a few times who addressed me by name before I even got close enough to shake his hand. I learned from the colleagues who spoke about Middleton during his party that he always makes it his point to remember people’s names and get to know them.
During a recent visit with Middleton to prepare for the June 6 forum, I asked him to share a few leadership tips. No surprise, the first thing he mentioned was networking and community projects.
“One thing we talk about with young people all the time is networking. Don’t go to just your son’s soccer game at 4 o’clock in the afternoon,” Middleton said in a small conference room on the 10th floor of the law firm’s Elm Street office. “Get out and go to functions. Get to know the business people in the community.”
Middleton served on the board of the Greater Manchester Chamber for 17 years, serving as legal counsel.
“If you are selected to serve in some capacity, do a good job,” said Middleton, who still works for the law firm one day a week. “The worst thing you can do is a poor job. That will end your networking career.”
Jack Middleton
Keri Laman
Dwight Davis
Maureen Beauregard
Gary Hirshberg
Jack’s secret to success is no secret:
You need to grind it out. Every day.
“Developing a law practice isn’t very complicated. Just get to work, do a good job, and that’s the recipe. Not a very complicated one, is it? The complicated part sometimes is to get the work. There’s a lot of competition.”
Keri Laman knows a little bit about competition and the power of outworking it. The owner of Tidewater Catering Group has been based in the Waumbec Mill building for nearly a quarter-century, and is the longest remaining tenant in the Manchester Millyard building.
Laman’s business office is on the second floor; on the first floor she operates the Waterworks Café and the Riverside Room, an events space. She also operates another café in the Sundial Center across town and a few cafeterias for business clients.
Over the course of her career, Laman has suffered numerous setbacks, including business deals gone bad and the fallout from COVID-19, when the hospitality business essentially shut down. She learned early on to adapt, keep close tabs on all her business lines, and be “very precise and measured” in her approach.
“Rainy days are going to come,” she said during a talk in her office. “Be ready for them so you don’t drown.”
It’s not unusual to find Laman working at a business or nonprofit catering event, which allows her not only to ensure quality control but make connections in the community.
“My approach is to always being extremely hands-on. There are definitely people out there, naysayers, that say, ‘Keri, you work too much in your business and not enough on it,’” Laman said. “And I guess we could always have that argument.
“But I also can point to CEOs who might not even be able to hold a conversation with their CPA, because they have no idea how their books are done.”
Leadership Unscripted takes place 8 to 11:30 a.m. June 6 at the Rex Theatre, 23 Amherst St., Manchester. Tickets, which include a continental breakfast, are $49. Register online at NHBR.com.
