Monday, January 25, 2010

Hartford Insurance Group


In Fall 1972 Eric Johnson, a high school friend of mine I had kept in contact with, had finished his Army service and was working at ITT-Hartford (Hartford Insurance Group) and suggested I apply there so he could get the $50 bounty for referring me. I believe he knew someone in Personnel so I was invited in for an interview and selected for the Management Training Program. At the time the program was a short cut for moving into positions of responsibility at the various regional offices of the Hartford. I found out later there was some friction between the graduates of the program and some of the old-timers who had "worked their way up" to their positions.

I was assigned to the Boston Regional office which was located at Government Center. I got lucky and found a small 1 room apartment on Beacon Street and took the subway into work each day. I got even luckier with my car which I parked over by the Fenway on Sunday nights and walked back to on Saturday mornings. In three months all it suffered was a broken tail light. I was moved through the various departments of a Regional office and in three months went back to Hartford for classroom work armed with my knowledge of regional office operations and an opinion that there wasn't anything I really wanted to do at a Regional office...