Bob Belair This is Me

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1. 1. www.delawareonline.com : The News Journal : LOCAL : As optimism dims, ex-Agilent worker considers moving and career change

   www.delawareonline.com/newsjou - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/31/2001   Last Visited: 12/31/2001

   Bob Belair doesn't want to move, but he's becoming more open to the idea if it's the only way to find a job.
   
   "Ideally, I wouldn't move," said the 48-year-old Hockessin father of three. "But in today's reality, you have to be crazy not to [consider it]."
   
   Belair was laid off in mid-October from his job as a program manager in the marketing department at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Agilent Technologies Inc. He had worked at the Greenville site in its Chemical Solutions business unit, promoting its business-to-business measurement products used to detect low levels of organic compounds.
   
   That's a nearly $5 billion business, he noted, and Agilent has a significant share of the market. But with manufacturing in a slump and the overall economy struggling, Agilent has shaved 8,000 jobs in recent months, even after cutting all employees' salaries by 10 percent in April in an effort to avoid layoffs. The company employs a little more than 700 in Delaware.
   
   "I was quite optimistic leaving Agilent that I wouldn't be unemployed for long," he said.
   
   Manufacturing has led the current downturn, starting six months before other sectors of the economy.
   ...
   Belair, who has an undergraduate chemistry degree, ideally would like to obtain work with a company similar to Agilent in terms of operations and customer base. But he also is looking at using his broader skills for other marketing or technology jobs, particularly in telecommunications or electronic commerce.
   
   He's not alone. According to international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago, 41 percent of people who got new jobs in the third quarter changed industries.
   
   Belair is working with a career transition counselor in Philadelphia, and has learned to focus more on networking rather than the Internet. Four weeks ago, he would spend as many as five hours a day on the Web, but now he spends five hours making phone calls and appointments.
   
   He's betting the contacts he made during two decades at Agilent and its predecessor, Hewlett-Packard Co., will help him find a job, even with a smaller company. "You have to network," he said. "It's all about contacting people."
   
   For now, Belair is cutting back on expenses, most recently skipping a Christmas skiing vacation. "There's just no money to do that, and I'm not going to put it on plastic," he said.
   
   Still, he considers himself lucky. With 20 years of experience and a salary in the $100,000 range before he left, he received a hefty severance package. He used it to pay off his credit card and other debt, and now has only his car loan, mortgage, routine utility bills and child support.
   
   That means he can start fresh once he has a job, and maybe pay for more of his sons' education.
   
   But he doesn't want to leave the area if he can avoid it. Belair is divorced, with one son enrolled at Wesley College in Dover, a second son looking at schools for next year and a third son starting high school in nearby Pennsylvania.
   
   So far, he has talked with about half a dozen prospective employers. The farthest one is in southern Connecticut.
   
   "Do I absolutely want to do that? No," he said. "But it would be workable."
   
   ...
   Bob Belair of Hockessin was laid off from his job as a program manager in the marketing department of Agilent Technologies Inc. in Greenville. He has been networking to find a new job.
   
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