Lisa Cooper is a VP at Ipsos and has worked in the industry for 23 years. She is truly one of the very few people I know who ,at the age of 12,declared that she was going to attend college in North Carolina, major in Marketing and become a Market Researcher. She accomplished all three.

She continues to serve the industry at the highest level and is also working on the Career Development Committee at CASRO. The charge is to attract the best and the brightest to careers in MR. If anyone can succeed it will be Lisa. She does all of these wonderful things in addition to being the mother of 2 teenage sons,one on the way to his Freshman year at Northeastern and the other a senior in HS to be who is working on his Black Belt in the martial arts.

Daughter # 3 out of 6 , Janet Baldi is also a second generation Researcher. She is a VP at RTi Research and is currently Secretary of the Norteast chapter of the MRA. Janet, unlike Lisa did not declare early on to be in our industry. She was bit by the Financial investing bug ,became a Day Trader and then thought it would be fun to join Dad. She has done remarably well and to quote her current boss Mel Rothstein ” Janet has developed a world class Field department at RTi ”

I could not be prouder and the Research world in my opinion is enriched by having these 2 wonderful ladies as part of our community.

As you now I jumped in when my Mom became ill 30 years ago and now my daugther Joelle is working with me as a 3rd generation researcher.

I just started reading this blog and am enjoying the stories.

Judy Hominy

Dagnabit, Merrill. Now you’ve got me thinking about all the other 2nd generationers who I’ve overlooked. Please add to the list:

Cristy Reid
Colorado Market Research, Inc.

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I’m not sure how many second-generation researchers you’ll find who actually aspired to take on the family business. I suspect that many of them found that it was something to do while they figured out what it was they wanted to do when they grew up. Nevertheless, nearly all can tell very memorable stories about growing up in this unusual profession.

Personally, my earliest recollections of involvement were serving as a gate-opener for my mother on long drives into the country to interview pecan farmers, and of being paid to roll out toilet paper on the living room floor to count the sheets as part of a quality control check audit. (I’ve tried to hone both of these skills over the years.) I also remember how embarrassed my brothers and I would be at the attention our house would draw from the neighborhood when a delivery truck would come unload 30 or 40 cases of Kotex into our garage.

At fourteen, when I lived in a seminary, Galloway Field Service donated about 10 cases Kool Aid packets that were left over from a market test that the client told the field agencies they could keep. It snowed that winter and we rolled up a 10 foot tall snowman on the football field and then colorized it with Kool Aid.

Around that same time a little nine-year-old girl, named Elisa, used to run packages of completed surveys up to our door for her mother, who worked as an interviewer. There were so many people coming and going all the time that I wouldn’t have paid her much notice. I did notice her, however, twelve years later when we were each working at the little company that had long since out-grown my family living room. Today that little girl is still here, only now she’s the president of the company and two of our sons Danny and David work here with us.

On that note, I might add that there are quite a few other 2nd and 3rd generation marketing researchers out there. Here are a few you missed. You should email them your link. They have more stories than you’ve got blog space.

Patrick

Susan Adelman
Survey Service, Inc

Jerry Carter
Consumer Opinion Services, Inc

Jane Rosen
Nichols Research

Aaron Nichols
Nichols Research

Elaine Herron-Cravens
The Herron Group of Tampa

Bill Gaffin
Synovate

Judy Hominy
Pat Henry Market Research, Inc

Teri Leibowitz
Leibowitz Market Research Assoc, Inc.

Merrill Shugoll
Shugoll Research

Not sure I’m first or second generation. If we start with Politz, Art Nielsen, Sr. and George Gallup, I guess we are all mostly second generation - those of us born in the forties and early fifties. If you start from the real explosion in marketing research - late 60’s through the 70’s, I guess many of us (including those you listed) are first generation.

Regardless of how we define the different cohorts, I am concerned about the emerging generation of researchers. Seems to me that the “business” of marketing research is too often usurping the art and science of marketing research. This seems especially true in the big research conglomerates. Personally, and professionally I don’t like that trend.

I think that trend, and the accompanying need to economically justify everything in the short term severely detracts from personal investments in training, mentoring, contributions to our associations, and the science of our profession.

We are clearly not the cohesive and dedicated group that we once were.

Or maybe I’m just feeling like an old grouch.

Keep up the good work.