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Ambiguous? Precisely

He came from a family of educators, but it took three years and six jobs after graduating to find his calling at USF.

By RODNEY THRASH
Published February 18, 2005

HUNTER'S GREEN - Leonard Contardo is the last person you'd expect to counsel others on their careers.

He couldn't keep a job his first three years out of school.

And for a while, Contardo didn't even have ambitions of attending college.

His life has been full of uncertainty, and that's just fine by the 36-year-old president of the New Tampa Community Council.

"There isn't a path," he said. "There isn't an answer. You truly have to be an individual who is comfortable with ambiguity."

Contardo dreamed big.

"Everyone wanted to be Donald Trump in the mid '80s, when he was originally popular," he said.

To be sure, Contardo was more enamored with the material trappings than with the billionaire real estate tycoon.

"It wasn't grounded in how he did it or what he did," he said. "Being 18 years old, you want to have things. Success is usually defined by stuff."

Although he came from a family of educators - dad Leonard Sr. was a teacher and school administrator for 33 years; mom Kathleen worked in the personnel department of Ryder College in New Jersey - Contardo had no desire to attend a four-year university. He was a self-admitted underachiever who didn't bother taking his college-entrance exam.

So it came as no surprise when, during his junior year at Steinert High School in Hamilton, N.J., a counselor told him he was not college material.

"I really didn't think I was going to go," Contardo said.

Still, to hear someone else say it stang.

"College isn't for everyone," he told the counselor. "I'll be successful. Just wait and see."

At his parents' behest, Contardo enrolled in Mercer County Community College after high school graduation in 1986. They figured if their son completely abandoned school, he'd never return. Contardo lasted a semester.

"Going to school was like sticking my toe in the water to see what the temperature was like," he said. "I really wasn't academically wired. I didn't have the discipline for it."

That changed a year later. He was working full time at a sports store and taking a couple of night classes at Ryder. The demands of school and work clashed one evening as Contardo tried completing a paper during a dinner break.

"I remember thinking, "I can't believe it's this hard,' " he said.

He had to choose: a lifetime of odd jobs or school.

"It was really a turning point where I truly realized I was meant to be in an academic setting," he said. "I needed to focus on it."

Contardo applied and was accepted to Ryder in 1987. He moved on campus, joined a handful of student organizations and majored in human resources management.

"There's so much freedom to pursue what you want to pursue, and I was interested in so many topics and had so many fascinating professors that really encouraged me to explore and to do research," he said. "You don't get that in high school because it's so structured. College is a very unique environment for that - the essence of discovery."

By the time he graduated in 1991 with a degree in business administration, Contardo had a job waiting for him in nearby Jamesburg, N.J. Things were looking up. Or so it seemed.

He was fired after three months.

Two days into his first job as a human resources generalist for Canon, the cameramaker, Contardo was reassigned to the payroll department - where he had no training.

"I was not a mathematician," he said. "I'm an organizational behavior person, an interpersonal skills trainer, a relationship guy."

Contardo returned to his job at the sports store. But the stay there wasn't long, either. Six months, Contardo said.

He moved to Melbourne to attend graduate school at the Florida Institute of Technology. Contardo didn't make it through the quarter.

When he returned to New Jersey, Contardo's sporadic behavior resumed. He did consulting work for a summer, managed a sports store for a year and sold cell phones for a few months. By 1994, he was selling water filters. That, too, was passe after a few months.

"I hit a great stride academically when I finished up at Ryder," he said. "That was an incredible high. Then, I take on this professional challenge and it did not go well. It caused me to question what I (was) meant to do."

Three years and six jobs later, he found his calling.

A position opened up at the one place where he thrived: his college alma mater. It was then that Contardo realized his purpose was to serve in some capacity in an academic setting, just as his parents had done.

"Emotionally, I needed to find the right environment for me," he said. "The job will take care of itself, but the environment was critical."

He was offered the job of assistant director of alumni relations. On his second day at work, he met the woman he would marry.

That position helped him land jobs as an assistant director of alumni career services at Atlanta's Georgia Tech University in 1996 and as a human resources manager at the University of South Florida. He has lived in New Tampa since September 2003.

"When things are right," Contardo said, "they're right."

Rodney Thrash can be reached at 813 269-5313 or rthrash@sptimes.com

AGE: 36

PERSONAL: Married to Renee for nine years; Two children, Cooper, 5, and Cameron, 2.

LAST BOOK YOU READ: The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success by Andy Andrews. "It had a very powerful message: You can control your happiness in life."

HOBBIES: Listening to old-time radio shows, tinkering with antique telephones, tennis.

WORDS TO LIVE BY: "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)

[Last modified February 17, 2005, 10:50:08]