In fact, the city is full of young urban professionals who arrived with a dream and a penny in their pocket. Lured by glamour, neon and big business, this fresh, smart workforce often hails from Boston, Northern Virginia, Dallas, and San Francisco. But folks, let me tell you, they are also from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Yes, pardon me boys, the Chattanooga Choo Choo stops in the Big Apple.
Here’s a cross-section of just a few Chattanoogans who are living and working in New York City. With interesting jobs and enough energy to fuel an express train, these born and bred Chattanoogans are pursuing remarkable careers in business, art, education, sports, and theater.
Bill Rosemann
• Career: Editor, Marvel Comics
• Chattanooga Neighborhood:
East Brainerd
• High School: Notre Dame High School
• College: University of Notre Dame
When an adult man describes his job by quoting Spider-Man, “With great power, comes great responsibility,” that man might work with comic books. Who else would speak in superhero superlatives? Though he may not be able to leap from skyscrapers and entangle villains with webs slung from his hands, Bill Rosemann, an editor at Marvel Comics, certainly has great responsibility.
Managing the production of multiple Marvel comic books each month keeps Bill as busy as some of the superheroes he helps create. Marvel publishes over 100 different comic books 52 weeks a year, which means around-the-clock writing, drawing, editing, and printing. There is no off-season.
“An editor is a strange mix of movie director, traffic cop, psychologist, shepherd, and dreamer,” reflects Bill. “You’re responsible for getting around 12 error-free comics to the store on time and on budget—and somehow gaining more readers—every month.”
Bill stays in daily contact with about 40 people just to get all the titles he edits to press. Each 32-page comic has its own writer, who creates the story’s action descriptions and dialogue; penciler, who draws what the writer describes; inker, who embellishes the pencil lines with darker ink; colorist, who uses a computer program like a paintbrush; and letterer, who creates all the word balloons filled with the writer’s script.
In his job, Bill “stretches a variety of muscles,” a comment aptly made by a man who works with brawny, larger-than-life heroes. Bill utilizes both creative and business savvy strengths. Along with his teams, he brainstorms what image will go on the cover of each book, reviews scripts, talks to pencilers about how to best capture a particular moment or emotion, converses with writers about what crazy twist will shake up their hero for the next six months, and even scrutinizes the colors of Captain America’s shield.
As for the business side, he works with Marvel’s sales and marketing departments to encourage readership growth and fan excitement. When asked to revitalize Marvel’s science-fiction line, Bill even helped launch two new comics, “Nova” and “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which have become critically-acclaimed, steady-selling monthly series.
For as long as he can remember, Bill wanted to make comic books. He believes every test taken, every book read, every movie watched, every job worked, and every person he has met has prepared him for his dream job. He says, “My parents raised me to chase after whatever my passion was, to try and find a job that allowed me to do what I love, and thanks to their guidance and support, I’m doing that now.”
Zoe Rind
• Career: Elementary School Principal, New York City
• Chattanooga Neighborhood:
Signal Mountain
• High School: Baylor School
• College: Haverford College
Zoe Rind found the diversity of her classroom at New York’s PS-19 in Queens to be “a little model of the United Nations” and much unlike her own first-grade class at Bachman School on Signal Mountain. Her students, mostly immigrant children, spoke eight to 10 different languages. With over 1,800 students, PS-19 seemed like a whole new world, much larger than Zoe’s experience at Baylor School and even Haverford College.
In addition, the socioeconomic challenges students faced were much graver than anything Zoe witnessed on Signal Mountain. Some students lived in apartments with 15 other people. Immigration issues, such as deported family members and time-strapped parents working multiple jobs to send money to families in far-away countries, disrupted homes. Children would save food from their free lunch to take home for dinner. Lack of health care was a tremendous burden.
Embracing the challenge of educating and empowering children in urban neighborhoods, Zoe decided to become an elementary school principal. She remarks, “Some people become teachers because they really like kids or they are really artistic. My call to teaching was about making a change. I’ve always asked myself, ‘How can I make a change with urban issues?’” She believes community involvement at Baylor School and participation in the Children’s International Summer Villages program made her socially aware at a young age.
This summer, Zoe will start New Leaders for New Schools, an alternate route for becoming a principal. The program, with classes at Stanford University, will equip her with the theoretical background to manage a school. Upon graduation in June, she will return to New York City for the practical training of her mission. Like a medical residency, she will shadow a principal for one year before moving to a public or charter school of her own.
Emanating with enthusiasm, which is perhaps the most valuable asset in managing an urban school, she says, “My goal as a principal would be to create an environment for high quality teaching and where all students can be successful.” With her great vision, she will surely change the lives of many young people.
John Holmes
• Career: Storyboard Illustrator,
The Studio, Inc.
• Chattanooga Neighborhood:
East Brainerd
• High School: McCallie School
• College: Yale University
Walking into John Holmes’ office on the corner of East 20th and Fifth Avenue is like stepping into an adult playground and nest of creative energy. Teeming with dogs, a pool table, oversized comic book prints, Mac computers, drawing tablet monitors where artists actually draw on the screen with a special pen, and funky music, the ambiance is fresh, modern, and downright fun. Immediately, John introduced me to Santana, his Dachshund from Ooltewah who rides to work with him every day on the subway from Queens. (So, technically, there are two Chattanoogans in the office.)
A storyboard illustrator, John draws for television commercials and sometimes print advertisements. He has illustrated recent ad campaigns for Milk Bone, Verizon, Olive Garden, Motorola, Pillsbury, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Census. Recently, he worked on the Double Stuf Oreo television commercial featuring Eli and Peyton Manning and Venus and Serena Williams.
A creation is born from a process. Art directors for advertising agencies make stick-figure renderings of what they want an advertising story to look like. From these renderings, John creates glorified, multi-layered illustrations on Photoshop.
The art is then passed along to the ad agency and returned with suggestions as to color or the direction of the graphics. For example, on a recent medicine product illustration showing an elderly man getting out of bed, the agency suggested the light be more golden to reinforce the healing effects. John and his co-workers touched it up. Viola! He had storyboard artwork for an ad which may hit television or magazines.
When speaking about his career, John graciously says, “I like the fact that I can draw for a living. I feel fortunate to be here. I can take my dog to work. There’s no place like it (The Studio) here.”
Rachel Monroe Cohen
• Career: Counsel, The New York Yankees
• Chattanooga Neighborhood:
East Brainerd/Ringgold
• High School: Girls Preparatory School
• College: Emory University (undergraduate), Columbia
Law School
Take me out to the ballgame has a different meaning for Rachel Cohen. In a season when Yankees tickets at the new stadium are at a premium, Rachel will attend every home game. The difference is, she won’t be watching the Bronx Bombers from one of the suite seats, buying peanuts and Cracker Jacks. Instead, she will be at her desk, drafting the contracts that make Yankees baseball happen.
Rachel has always loved sports. She found, with her law degree, that she was overqualified to work for a sports marketing agency, and she hadn’t been practicing law long enough to be counsel for a major league sports team such as the Yankees. So when a position opened at the Yankees in corporate sponsorship, she took a risk. Right out of a follow-your-dream Broadway play, she took a step down to make a step up. She took a pay cut from her corporate law job in Dallas to do corporate sponsorship at the Yankees. The Yankees warned her that the job would involve no legal work. Rachel responded, “I’ll do anything to get into sports.”
Sometimes, when one takes a risk, there is return. On her very first day, the lone in-house counsel, swamped and drowning in paperwork, asked Rachel for help editing and red-lining. From that moment on, Rachel took on extra legal work, in addition to her job in sponsorship. One year later, she had passed the New York Bar and the Yankees promoted her to counsel. “I was in the right place at the right time,” she says, smiling. “I was willing to take a chance, to take a step down to get a step up, and I worked very hard the whole time.”
Today, she still works hard. “I do a lot of work. It is seven days a week from April 1st to October 31st. There hasn’t been a weekend that I haven’t done work,” she says, as she checks her Blackberry intermittently.
Although she does not write player contracts, she seems to give the sign for every pitch outside the foul lines. Her bread and butter pitches include sponsorship for advertisements, contracts for corporate events, and ADA policies, which are federal regulations requiring the new stadium to be more accessible for persons with disabilities. Community outreach, lobbying and filings for the city, publication contracts for photos, and a license for Yankees Magazine are the off-speed pitches in her repertoire. Concessionaires and working with two of the Yankees’ minor league affiliates keep her days in the bullpen lively.
“My job is half business and half legal, and that’s why I like it,” Rachel says about her job as counsel. “Sports business is like building a brand.” Plus, an enticement for any sports fan, she was able to invite her dad and brothers to visit New York City for the All-Star game.
Montego Glover
• Career: Actress, Singer,
Broadway star
• Chattanooga Neighborhood: Brainerd
• High School: Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences
• College: Florida State University
For many, making it to Broadway is a dream; for Montego Glover, it’s a reality. Montego is an actress, singer, and theater star based in New York City.
Montego’s Broadway roles include “The Color Purple,” where she played both Celie and Nettie, and “Dreamgirls.” This fall, “Memphis” will be her third Broadway show. In addition to regional shows, she’s performed in Off-Broadway productions of “Ghetto Superstar” and “Pirates of Penzance.” Her television appearances include “Law & Order,” “Guiding Light,” and “The Wonderful World of Disney.”
Montego credits the Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences as one of the most significant influences in her career. “I met my first acting teacher there, who laid the foundation for everything I know about the craft. I got a superior education and superior creative exposure to music, theater, and the arts,” she reflects. “I felt best on stage and realized that if I could make this my career, that might be good.”
Montego spent the last year as leading lady Felicia Farrell in the world premiere of the musical “Memphis.” For her role, Montego was nominated for the IRNE Award for “Best Actress in a Musical” and the SFTC Award for “Best Female Performance in a Musical.” The two nominations were for the East and West coast premieres of “Memphis” at North Shore Music Theatre and Theatre Works respectively. Producers picked up “Memphis” for Broadway this fall, and Montego can’t wait to introduce Broadway to this new leading lady.
Although Montego acts in television commercials, for instance as the weather woman in the Subway $5 Footlong campaign, and does voice over work for commercials, such as Wish-Bone Salad Dressing, the stage seems to be her true love. She lights up when describing acting, “I want to be part of television and film programming that reflects the lives of real people. Theater, which is a full-contact sport, requires a huge box of tools. When we go on stage, we hear the audience listening, breathing, crying, grasping, or clapping. There’s a kinetic energy that permeates the room. It’s incredible, and it affects your whole body on stage.”
Remembering Chattanooga, Montego says she was raised to leave home after high school, but she speaks fondly of the Scenic City. “I had a set of miniature adult skills,” she says. “Chattanooga helped me to be true to my Southern heritage and to be ready to go out into the real world. Chattanooga is most definitely my home and it will always be that way.” The world may know her for “Memphis,” but we know the truth: this talented woman hails from Chattanooga.
From Broadway to baseball, storyboards and Spider-Man to public schools, these five Chattanoogans have impressive careers. There is, however, a tie that binds. Every person interviewed spoke with great sentiment about Chattanooga: fond memories, favorite places, and bits of advice from teachers and parents. Each praised his or her high school for quality academics and extracurricular opportunities.
There are many other young Chattanoogans living in New York City, making waves in a land of big business and a fast-paced lifestyle. As for these five, maybe the train will “choo choo” them home or maybe they’re in New York City to stay. Either way, they each have carried a little bit of Chattanooga with them and seem to be sharing it with the world beyond.