Pre-Boomer Reflections

The autobiography tracks the life of a young boy born into an Eastern European family in a small town in New jersey known as the" asbestos capital of the world." His town is filled with DP's (displaced persons) who had lost everything in the war and were recruited from the ashes of post war Europe for a wonderful job in America. A strange upbringing peppered with accounts of being a bag man for the town bookie, spending Sunday afternoon in saloons while his mother worked, living with a father who adored his brother while being told never to have anymore children, and who became completely acclimated to hearing only Polish, Russian, Hungarian and Czech spoken. A child who broke free of the company town where people worked cradle to grave to become a corporate Vice President, become a successful entrepreneur, provide research for intelligence agencies, marry four times while never getting a chance to raise two wonderful children, and finally have enough time left to write this book.

Dennis Negran has been a senior executive in Talent Acquisition and Human Resources for 25 years. In that time, he has directed recruitment activities for start-ups, Fortune 500 companies, global organizations and government services contractors. His expertise lies in teaching organizations how to effectively fill their staffing needs for growth, and building their talent acquisition organizations and processes to accomplish their goals. He has held the following positions: • Vice President of Talent Acquisition for Vencore • Director of Talent Acquisition for Vangent • Vice President for Human Resources / Talent Acquisition for ManTech • Corporate Director of Strategic Staffing for LaFarge North America • Direct of Human Resources / Staffing for Harris Corporation • Director of Human Resources for Chromatis Networks, an optical networking start-up which he grew from 12 employees to over 300 in 12 months. It was acquired by Lucent for $4.7B and was the highest value acquisition in the telecom industry. Dennis is a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University with B.A.'s in Pre-Law and Philosophy, and holds a Masters in English. He attended the Dickenson School of Law in Pennsylvania. He is a native of New Jersey and now resides in North Carolina. Dennis also holds a TS/SCI with a Polygraph from the government.

Through all of this he has chronicled his life outside of several careers to recall his childhood memories in a company town in the middle of New Jersey where English was seldom spoken. This book is his story.