A Networking Success Story

Across a Crowded Room

"A few weeks after they first met at the Chamber "Working the Pond" networking session, she invited him home to meet her parents."

They were just following instructions from the presenters, “Look around and make eye contact with someone you’ve never met before.  Now walk over and introduce yourselves…… “Smethport, you are kidding me?”  My family has a camp near there; most of the world doesn’t know the area exists!”

Smethport is the hub of McKean County in Northwestern PA, a quaint little town on scenic Route 6 , the county seat, the home of the mighty “Hubbers”, Smethport Specialty Company’s renowned Wooly Willy* and John Hendrickson, Chamber member.  That evening John, CEO of Frederick Living, and Sue Seanor, at that time the Community Relations Director of Chestnut Knoll at Home, discovered that they had waded in the same streams as kids.  Norwich, PA, a stone’s throw from Smethport, was once on center stage of the logging industry, the site of Sue’s family cabin and the birthplace of John’s mother.  A friendship was born.  John and his lovely wife were introduced to Sue’s family and parents at a dinner at her home.  Hours were spent reminiscing about the McKean County area.  A bond was formed far deeper than one of a business level.

Sue Seanor is a master networker.  A bubbly extrovert, she thrives in the Pond with genuine warmth and resolves to connect with others at a deeper level.  John Hendrikson, a soft spoken, kind hearted gentleman, runs Frederick Living with the same grace that comes across at both the kitchen table and the board room.

Fidgeting with his business card, John reluctantly stood to encounter a stranger as did others who were pushed into the Chamber Pond that evening.  “Generally, I don’t relish the spontaneous,” John asserts.  “But the privilege of connecting with Sue and her family reveals that the rewards of connecting with new people are greater than those that lie within our confining comfort zones”.  Sue, who was a new member of the Chamber Pond that evening, adds “I look back and realize that had I not have attended the Chamber Annual Dinner that evening, I may have never known that John and I shared a connection on a much deeper level, one that involved our families.  That first event gave me the confidence to overcome any shyness that I had to connect with a stranger and taught me to really know the person that I am shaking hands with, not just collect their business card”.

_{*Wooly Willy is a framed, smiling, follicly challenged chap.  A magnetic stick and metal shavings enable the stealth user to give Willy lambchop sideburns or a Mohawk.}