LETTERS
Once a consultant...

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I was impressed with the research that went into Sharla A. Stewart's June/02 article on the consulting profession ("So who wants to be a consultant?"), specifically that not only did she cite my long-out-of-print book on the subject, The Business Healers, but she also correctly identified me as having attended the University of Chicago (X'59).

I hung out a lot on campus around that time. Actually, I attended the Laboratory Schools for two of my high-school years, attended Carleton College, then returned to enroll in graduate school in the art department, leaving after a year because I was drafted into the Army. After discharge I worked for two years as assistant editor for the Kiwanis Magazine, then thought I would return to the Midway (1959) to get a master's degree in English, so I could get a job as a teacher and support a part-time writing career. Unfortunately, after about a year I started to get incompletes in all my classes. I had begun to get so many magazine writing assignments, I could no longer keep up with my class work. It was at this point that I decided, maybe I don't need that extra degree.

I spent many happy hours at Stagg Field running with Coach Ted Haydon's University of Chicago Track Club. Although I have written for the New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Playboy, and many other magazines and published 33 books, I am probably best known for my writing in Runner's World.

Ironically, I am now employed as a training consultant for the LaSalle Bank, albeit teaching runners how to train for the bank's marathon. If any Chicago alumni have a marathon in their future, they can find my training schedules on www.halhigdon.com.

Hal Higdon, X'59
Michigan City, Indiana

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