God saw Adam and it was good
Here's a shoutout to my good friend, Adam Fairholm. Because of my profound respect for Adam and his work, I couldn't help but honor his request that I author a LancesWorld.com post exclusively devoted to him. And you guessed it, this is that post.
Adam and I met at Notre Dame during my senior year (his freshman year). I was working as Executive Producer of NDtv and Adam joined the show's staff as our "Host Producer." I recognized his talent immediately. He was the most dedicated worker on the entire show. Seeing this dedication, when we needed a new Executive Producer in the second semester of my senior year, he was my hand-picked candidate for the position. (Originally, the show had four Exec. Producers and one of them quit during the spring semester). Adam came into the role and filled it like it was made for him. Until Adam came along, I was seriously in doubt that NDtv would survive after I left Notre Dame. But, as fate would have it, Adam was there. Not only did Adam help the show to survive, he has made it grow substantially. In his first year as Executive Director (yes, a change of title, reflecting a complete revamping of the way NDtv was run), NDtv went from being a single 30-minute show produced every two weeks out of a broom closet in the basment of the dining hall, to being a campus cable station capable of broadcasting 24-hours a day with two weekly programs - "NDtv News" and "The Mike Peterson Show" - being produced in their own studio in Washington Hall in the heart of the campus. Adam has taken the dream of NDtv and helped bring it so much closer to reality than I ever imagined possible after only three years of existence at the school.
It was Adam's extreme success at turning NDtv into a real player in the world of Notre Dame campus media that led me to recommend him for an internship on RENT. Adam came out to San Francisco to intern on the show for three weeks after school ended in May. For the first week, he stayed with me at my place. I was a mediocre host at best, I must admit. The weekend he arrived I was out of town in Utah, and the following weekend I was out of town in Los Angeles. But I did let him use my Not For Tourists Guide!
Next year, not only is Adam going to continue fostering the rapid growth of NDtv, he is also going to be drawing a daily cartoon for Notre Dame's student newspaper, The Observer. Seeing the dedication and effort that he puts forth for the things he is passionate about, I am more than certain that Adam is going to excel at whatever career he chooses.
You can check out the NDtv website at http://www.ndtv.net/.
You can visit Adam's personal page at http://www.nd.edu/~afairhol/.