I’ve been thinking about Jerry Panas this week. He passed away last Saturday night, the 14th, at age 90.
What a full life he lead, and how busy he was! Jerry lived in northwest Connecticut, and yet the office for his consulting firm was in Chicago. I asked him about that once. “Rob, I’m on a plane so much, it just made sense to put the office in the middle!”
Do you know that Jerry Panas wrote the best-selling fundraising book of all time, “Asking,” when he was 74? His last book, actually a collection of works by Sy Seymour, an early giant of our profession, was published when Jerry was 89!
So much for retiring. I’m not sure fundraising will ever see another like him.