He’s no tinker, tailor, soldier or spy
Summer series: Tales from jobs past
Afew years ago, for the edification of his children, Franklin Park attorney Cris Hoel developed a list of every occupation he had pursued to earn money.
He came up with 47 in a career spanning the journalism, law and investment professions. Along the way, Mr. Hoel also was a paper boy, gave tennis lessons to 6- and 7-year-olds, sold light bulbs over the phone, typed contracts and other legal documents, researched dyslexia for an affiliate of the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, and worked on a Chalfant Borough road crew clearing street drains and applying asphalt patches.
“Honestly, I understand if people don’t believe it,” the 60year-old said of his resume.
Mr. Hoel describes his working life as a succession of happy coincidences that began when he was about 12.
After delivering The Pittsburgh Press one day, the avid baseball fan thumbed through a leftover newspaper and read a story about a Pittsburgh Pirates game. Seeing a byline on the story made him come to a lifechanging realization.
“Now there is a job,” he thought. “This guy gets to watch baseball games, tell everybody what he thinks about it, gets paid for it, and probably gets into the games for free.”
Flash forward a few years to 1976.
Mr. Hoel was a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh, serving on the staff of the Pitt News. That meant writing and editing stories, taking photographs and selling ads. The two seniors who had seniority to cover Pitt’s national championship football team suddenly left school, giving him the opportunity to write about the Panthers. His stories caught the attention of the Press’ sport staff, who offered Mr. Hoel a job.
A full-time job as a journalist and a year as president of a Pitt
fraternity put Mr. Hoel’s undergraduate studies on the six-year plan.
After graduating in 1981, he moved to Texas, where he was accepted into the University of Texas’ law school. But Mr. Hoel delayed his education in order to qualify for in-state tuition, taking a job with the Austin AmericanStatesman for a year.
He subsequently changed his mind about living in Texas.
Returning to Pittsburgh, Mr. Hoel took a job with the Western Pysch affiliate in order to quality for in-state tuition at Pitt’s law school. To support his wife while he went to law school, he worked nights and weekends at Buchanan Ingersoll, the city’s premier law firm, after answering a help-wanted ad for a typist.
One day, attorney Laura Ellsworth, who lost the Republican primary for governor this year, spotted Mr. Hoel reading a textbook on torts. After finding out he was making straight As in his first year in law school, she asked if he would like to be a summer clerk.
“Is that better than a typist?” he remembers asking.
Mr. Hoel was hired by Buchanan after graduating from law school in 1986.
The firm’s clients included Pittsburgh Brewing. Mr. Hoel was drawn into the hometown brewery’s dispute with Beer World, a coalition of beer distributors organized and controlled by David Trone, now running as a Democrat for a Maryland congressional seat.
It was the start of a long career serving beverage industry clients, a career that included Mr. Hoel being fired as Pittsburgh Brewing’s outside attorney when entrepreneur Michael Carlow took over in 1992.
During a phone call the morning after the purchase, Mr. Carlow said he understood Mr. Hoel did a lot of work at the brewery, where the lawyer had an office in addition to his office at Buchanan. After Mr. Hoel acknowledged that, Mr. Carlow said, “Not any more you don’t. Get out here and pack up your crap. You’re through.”
“For reasons that later became apparent, [Mr. Carlow] needed to have his own reliable people in place,” Mr. Hoel said.
Four years later, Mr. Carlow was indicted in connection with a $31.3 million check-kiting scheme that victimized PNC Bank. Mr. Carlow pleaded guilty to bank fraud and tax charges, and served six years of an eightyear sentence.
Mr. Hoel’s legal career took a detour in 2004, when former University of Pittsburgh law professor Edward Symons asked him to be president of Symons Capital Management, his South Hills investment firm. Mr. Hoel held the post for about four years before resuming his legal career.
Recently, Pittsburgh Brewing’s newest owner, Clifford Forrest, asked him to represent the brewery — 26 years after he was fired.
“It’s great to be back,” Mr. Hoel said.
The Franklin Park resident learned something from each of his nearly four dozen occupations — whether it was how to interact with a diverse group of people on a borough road crew or discovering as a paper boy that “there are people who will stiff a 12year-old for 70 cents,” he said.
“Every one of them [jobs] helped me with every other one of them,” he said.
“For reasons that later became apparent, [Mr. Carlow] needed to have his own reliable people in place.” C. hris Hoel attorney