Dear Carl:

I'm writing to thank and commend you and Jim Anderson for your work in helping to prepare Blood Systems (and especially, me!) for the visit by the CBS Evening News "Eye on America" crew.

While I had some experience in dealing with local media, your prospective helped me understand what network reporters and producers really want, and your recommendations helped me develop strategies to tell our story in that arena. Relying on the techniques I learned from you, I was more relaxed, confident and able to drive home our positive messages during the live follow-up on "CBS This Morning."

Most valuable, however, was your advice for communicating with the producer after the story was shot but before it was edited. With your guidance, we were able to further undermine the weakest (but perhaps most potentially damaging) elements of the story so that they never aired. What might have been an extraordinarily negative story for our organization had almost no impact.

I particularly enjoyed working with you and Jim. You were well prepared and made sure the time we spent together was absolutely productive. I appreciated the sense of humor you brought to the table. Best wishes for continued success.

Sincerely,

J. Daniel Connor
President and Chief Executive Officer
JDC:se