A Closer Look What's in a byline

11-Nov-11
Published in: St. Louis Business Journal
Author: Ellen Sherberg
Description: Webster's involvement in the Regional Business Council's Higher Education Collaboration Mentor Network and the power of the program are mentioned in the St. Louis Business Journal.

We all see the world through our own frame and bring our own bias and context to a news story.

So the "other 99 percent" who read the "Paying for performance" story on Page 1 this week will be angry. Some of the elite 1 percent will be envious or curious or both.

For me, honestly, the story is in the byline. This is the first time Rebecca Wohltman's great contributions to our newspaper have been recognized so prominently as in the front-page byline Greg Edwards insisted on sharing. Greg, as everyone knows, is the clearest writer in town. What few outside our newsroom knew, however, is that Rebecca is our unseen hand, researcher par excellence who toils in the spreadsheets and documents and turns out templates like those that accompany this story.

If the devil is in the details, he doesn't scare Rebecca one bit.

Her meticulous work is something you would expect of, say, a lawyer. That's not a surprise because Rebecca is completing her final year at Saint Louis University Law School. We've seen her grow from a college student on a bowling scholarship at McKendree to a confident young, married professional, working at the St. Louis Business Journal during summers and part time during the school year.

I first met Rebecca through the Regional Business Council's Higher Education Collaboration Mentor Network. The program began in 2003 and matches top executives with students at business and engineering schools at a dozen of the region's universities and colleges. This year 113 mentors representing 60 RBC companies work with 82 business majors and 35 engineering majors.

My mentee this year is Kearston Harris, a media communications major at Webster University. She is incredibly impressive and holds down two jobs - working on the computer help desk at Webster and serving as a greeter at Target - in addition to her academic load.

But Kearston has to go a long way to match Rebecca's work ethic. We all do. The first day we hired Rebecca on a part-time basis was the only day in the 30-year-plus history of this newspaper that we closed for snow. It was a Friday. There was a warning to stay off the streets. I thought it prudent to keep people at home. Rebecca had to drive the farthest. We didn't have her cell phone. It never dawned on us that she would show up. She did. And she's been showing up ever since. Today, you'll find her on the front page.

I don't know how well she's doing in law school, but Rebecca will outwork and outperform anybody I've been honored to work with. It's who she is. I suspect it's who Kearston is as well. That's why the RBC formed the Mentor Network, to encourage talented, dedicated students to stay in St. Louis. We need them.

For those of us at the St. Louis Business Journal, working with Rebecca has turned the mentor/mentee relationship on its head. From her, we have learned how to work harder, smarter, more exactly. Hopefully we've helped her achieve some of the success she so richly deserves.

For those of us at the St. Louis Business Journal, working with Rebecca has turned the mentor/mentee relationship on its head. From her, we have learned how to work harder, smarter, more exactly. Hopefully we've helped her achieve some of the success she so richly deserves.

It's a life lesson for all of us.