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He was the light of my career.  For twenty-five years, I had longed for a recruiting partner, but it seemed I could never find anyone who was my equal and with whom I could really groove on a daily basis.   But earlier this year, Rich Fisher somehow fell out of heaven and into my lap as a working partner.   Now, Rich is gone; he died last night, Saturday, December 22, 2007, of a massive heart attack.  He was only 52 years old.

He died right after doing what he loved to do most for recreation: watching a movie.  After the movie, he told his life partner, Victoria, that he felt pain in his chest, and asked her to bring him a couple of aspirins.   After he took them, he got up as if to walk to the bathroom, but he never got there.  He collapsed to the floor.   Rich never regained consciousness. 

I am completely shattered.   I do not know how I am even going to finish this article.  Tears flow from my eyes in torrents.  I have been so slammed I can't even write. 

I have been ripped off of one of the most ethical, generous, hard working, gifted, and extraordinary recruiters I have ever had the privilege to have so close to my working life.   I don’t know how I’m even going to sit down at my desk after the holidays; because the first thing I used to always do in the morning was call Rich.  He always used to get up earlier than I do and by the time I got to work I usually had messages and emails piled up from him. 

Not only did he get up and start work earlier than I do, but he would write me emails in the middle of the night!  I have literally hundreds of emails from Rich that he wrote at 1:30 am and 3:21 am and at other odd hours.   He loved so much to work; worked all the time and whenever he felt like it.   And he didn’t care what time I called him; anybody could call Rich anytime.  Whenever he wasn’t working he was watching a movie.  And he didn’t mind if you interrupted his movie: he’d just hit the pause button. 

Before Rich became a recruiter he owned a Video Store.  Is that surprising?  Ha, ha… Hardly.  He loved movies so much that he also loved to sell them and rent them.   I suppose when the Blockbusters began to overwhelmingly dominate the movie rental business, Rich moved on to a sales job he could do for a good income.  Because Rich loved to make money, and he always told me so.  

He thought a man who didn’t work as hard as he could, and try to make as much money as he possibly could to support his family, was a loser.   But yet he loved and respected women professionals and was especially nice to women.   He comforted me when I was victimized by a gigolo.  He said all the right things: he was a fantastic conversationalist.  And he was not only generous with his time, but also with his income.  He was even known to have paid for continuing education classes for struggling claims adjusters who wanted to get hired and couldn’t because of their lack of credentials and certifications. 

He was also the funniest man: always sending me jokes via emails and leaving me voice mail messages imitating foreign accents.   His accents always sounded incredibly real and I told him he could have been an actor.  He had me going a lot of times in belief that the messages were real.   How Rich loved a good gag.

Rich Fisher showed up in my working life at what I reasonably could describe as the most difficult time of my career history:  right after a bitter lawsuit, an eviction from my leased office, a personal life tragedy.   He had been my competitor!  And then one day he calls me up, and I thought, "Oh God, what does this headhunter want from me?  Is he going to yell at me and rip me a new one for stealing one of his candidates?" But that wasn't it.  He called me to feel me out about partnering with him, because he had just left the recruiting company where he had worked for about 9 years and was looking for a recruiter to work with, so he sought me out.  I was kind of surprised but very complimented.  Then, I thought, "Is this guy a sleeze?"  So, I started dealing with him very slowly--jaded as I am.   And he turned out to be honest to the core and generous as hell.  He picked me up every day with his spirit, his humor, his talent, and his wonderful ambition.  What a gift he was to me.   I got lucky!!!

As I sit here, I remember thinking very recently how Rich was so much more successful and skilled as a recruiter than I am.  And I still believe it now that he’s gone.  It was and remains my opinion. 

There are so many claims department clients and claims professionals and nurse case managers who benefited from his work; and they will all clearly feel the change when they next need a recruiter.  

Rich is survived by his life-partner, Victoria Valice, and an adult son who is in his twenties. 

Lonce LaMon's email address is: lonce@loncelamon.com