"Everything is incomplete upon creation, and obsolete upon completion." 

Terry joined Fun and Profit (F&P) at the end of the 1980s. It was a tiny marketing firm that had a big contract with the City of Hope for fundraising coupons. The name reflected the motto: “Personal growth and financial well-being,” which erased the line between work and play.  It was where crazies with karaoke machines and boundary-stretching exercises invented new marketing concepts to overcome False Evidence Appearing Real (FEAR). 

One such innovation was the rebate bundling program (CashBack) with Alpha Beta that promised customers the ability to submit all their rebates in one batch. Instead of the tedious process of clipping one proof of purchase, saving the receipt, filling out a form and using a stamp, the consumer bundled lots of rebates into one submission and got a sizable check in return. F&P pioneered the program… and lost A LOT of money.
 

“It’s not the force of the gale, it’s the set of the sail that determines your direction in life.”

With the small staff of F&P, Terry sat at the table while his friend and partner Norman, understanding that they were almost completely ruined. If they were to have any hope of making some changes to the program and rescuing the company, Norman would have to take out a full value second on his home. He was staking everything - his home, his business, his future - on this team. It was palpable. Terry watched his friend push all his chips to the middle - the moment was seared into his memory. 

The second iteration went better, as they sorted out the substantial complications. They signed up Long’s Drugs and some other chains. And after “10 short years” of proving themselves, Sam’s Club came calling. Walmart’s new big box format was looking for an edge in their rivalry with Costco, and F&P’s CashBack book was that angle. That was when they achieved full liftoff. F&P later sold to Young America, a huge fulfillment house in Minnesota with its own zip code. 

"When you step off the road and into the forest, if there's already a path, it's not your path." 
 

Terry isn’t someone who shrinks from adventure. No, Terry sprints after adventure and tracks it down like a bounty hunter. While at F&P, Terry met some people who were working with a shaman from the upper Amazon. Shamanism is the world’s oldest religion - no belief systems, no dogma - just pure experience while creating moments of awe and beauty to engender love for self, others and the world.  Despite being an Episcopalian from Glendale, Terry opened himself up to what the tribes, ceremonies and teaching plants had, and still have to offer.  Note to Captain Kirk - outer space is not the final frontier.
 

"Art is love made visible"

In the 1990s, Terry and Jeanie enjoyed a Shakespearian play at a run-down, converted Masonic Temple in Glendale. Terry was intrigued and reached out to Geoff Elliot and Julia Rodriguez-Elliot, two entrepreneurial artists with Masters in Fine Arts from San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre. 

In Terry’s judgment, they were the real deal, but their theater company, A Noise Within, was underfunded and practically homeless. He promised them that they’d get a permanent home… somehow. They created a board of directors and made Terry the Chairman, where he labored for the next 11 years. 

Terry started a fundraiser for a permanent home and hired a capital campaign advisor who suggested that Pasadena is more of an arts town. Patron and mayor of Pasadena Bill Bogaard helped find a property in east Pasadena, and everything was looking good as they passed the halfway point in their $16M fundraising campaign in 2008. Then, the market crashed, fundraising got very difficult, and some experts suggested ANW should find a Plan B. Terry refused to give up (don’t always listen to the experts), but he didn’t refuse to adapt to the circumstances. They trimmed their plans a bit and redoubled their efforts. By 2013 A Noise Within had a beautiful, new 33,000 square foot 325 seat theater with rehearsal halls and offices on Foothill Blvd in Pasadena. 
 

"You can measure your success by the good citizens that appreciate and support your efforts  - and validate it by the rascals that don’t."

Terry and Jeanie lived in La Canada, where they raised their two daughters, Lydia and Charlotte, both of whom played softball. At the time, girls softball in La Canada was rolled up under the boys baseball league, and got far less than its fair share of attention and funding. As a consequence, some of the better players decamped for Pasadena or La Crescenta leagues, and the summer all star tournaments were beat-downs for the La Canada girls. 

Some of the parents decided it was past time for Softball to get proper representation, starting with its own board of directors, and Terry was recruited to build a board and be league commissioner. But, unlike business or performing arts, girls softball was seriously cutthroat. 

La Canada being … well La Canada - brimming with doctors and lawyers - need we say more - who will stop at nothing to make sure that their kids’ teams are stacked with talent, the parents were the biggest challenge. Terry and the board members defined their mission as “striking a balance between recreation and competition while upleveling the skill of every girl.” There were many seemingly reasonable requests to allow girls to be on the same team in order to facilitate carpooling. But, often those requests were from the parents of the best players. Turning them down made Terry unpopular in some circles. 

While he canceled requests for favoritism with one hand, Terry penned “thank yous” with the other. He included more parents in the league and formalized the processes for everything, making transparency a priority. Terry made a lot of amendments to the rulebook, and some enemies, but also some committed families and grateful girls. 

Pretty quickly things started to change. Within a year, the flow of talent out of La Canada started to slow and then reverse. That year, they didn’t lose by the mercy rule in the regional tournament. The next year they actually won a game. In Terry’s last year as Commissioner the 14 and under team won the state softball tournament. 
 

"Behind the doors of fear are most likely the greatest treasures you'll ever find." 

When he turned 50, Terry got serious about his physical health. As with everything, he strategized: he needed strength, balance and flexibility to stay healthy and injury-free. He started yoga at the YMCA in La Canada 4X per week. Every time he went to yoga, he passed the glass-walled dance room at the Y where the ladies were doing pretty cool jazz routines. “You should join us, Terry! We need a guy,” Julie Markowitz would entreat him regularly. 
 

“Be willing to be wrong all the time”

The thing with Terry is: once an idea lodges in his head, it’s eventually going to have its way. A decade earlier someone suggested that he take an improv class. He put it off as long as he could, but the idea had the reins. Eventually he had to succumb, first to 8 weeks of Improv 101, culminating with a show, and then to Improv 201, also culminating with a show - as well as 101 sketch writing. And, the thing about Improv is that, for beginners, it can have moments of brilliance, but it will definitely have moments of sheer terror. You have to be comfortable being wrong all the time. 

And then there’s Jazz dance. It took five years for him to cross the threshold into the aquarium of the Jazz dance studio, where a very clear glass wall separated him from most of the dance critics. Initially, he was not great. But the most vocal critic was inside himself, and he definitively explained to Terry that he was bad at every aspect. Terry negotiated with this ultimate critic: back off for a year so that I can have enough experience to make an informed decision. His critic relented, but not without some lapses. 

Terry took several classes a week at the Y, and to catch up, he followed the class once a week to the Lineage dance studio in Pasadena. He was immediately impressed with Lineage, and their mission of helping everyone connect through the arts. Not only is Terry still dancing to jazz, he’s now the President of the Lineage board of directors.  

That led to Flamenco, his latest immersion project - yes, Kevin Herzberg - you will get your show.