Published: May 27, 2009 02:42 pm      

Jack Murtha is our community organizer

Welcome to Showcase for Commerce, my elite media friends.

Being a Notre Dame graduate, I listened very closely to President Obama’s recent Notre Dame commencement speech

Obama’s address triggered an idea that I want to leave with you as you visit our 19th Showcase for Commerce.

Our president spoke about his experiences as a community organizer in a Southside Chicago neighborhood that had been ravaged by the closing of a steel mill. A brilliant, hardworking young man named Obama helped this neighborhood – devastated by the destruction of manufacturing jobs – get back on its feet.

After some reflection, this statement of Obama’s struck a big chord with me: It reminded me of the 30-plus-year career of Jack Murtha.

Our community continues to be served by a most unlikely community organizer, Murtha.

He is a veteran Marine who ran the best car-wash business in town.

Murtha entered the public arena as our economy was undergoing a dramatic transformation. He continuously has had to fight to turn around the district’s economy that was devastated by declines in the coal and steel industries.

As we begin Showcase, one of the keystone events that highlights our region’s transformation to the outside world, we need to remember that Murtha is our 30-year veteran community organizer.

To our elite media guests at Showcase, I also invite you to reflect upon this fact: Showcase is in its 19th year. According to some estimates, it has brought $3 billion of business to our area. This is not a bad record for us “yunzers,” who can’t count in trillions like your Beltway crowd.

As Obama joked at the White House press corps dinner – you all voted for him.

But please remember that altruism, a desire to unselfishly serve a community, is not limited to our president.

Please, elite media friends, keep an open mind to the fact that altruism can exist in a 30-year member of Congress who has transformed his district.

In fact, if that neighborhood in Chicago had a congressman as effective as Jack, maybe it would not have needed the young do-gooder from Hawaii.



Mark E. Pasquerilla is chairman of Crown American Hotels, which has its headquarters in Johnstown.