Sticking with the theme to start....
"John Fish went from struggling boy to Olympic bidder; Suffolk Construction chief executive worked his way to wealth, clout" by Jack Thomas | Globe Correspondent June 29, 2014
He seems now an unstoppable force in town, a power almost without peer in construction, commerce, and charity, and the engine behind an idea that divides the city but which he thinks could define it — the 2024 Olympic bid.
I think the idea $ucks.
That's my input, $uch a$ it i$.
But for what seemed to him the longest time, John Fish was the little boy who couldn’t, the boy who kept to the back of his Catholic school classroom in hopes that the nuns wouldn’t call his name.
In third grade, he still struggled to read. He couldn’t spell and could barely write. What was easy for others was nearly impossible for him. Teachers, classmates, even his family thought he might not be all that bright. And Fish had to wonder whether they might be right.
Then, in fifth grade, Fish was diagnosed with severe dyslexia, a learning disorder. It was an assessment that could have devastated but instead liberated him. He knew intelligence wasn’t the problem. He would just have to work harder than everyone else.
And never back down from a fight.
That ferocious determination has driven Fish ever since, and now he is applying his uncommon focus and hard-won clout to bringing to Boston one of the biggest undertakings the city might ever see: the summer Olympics.
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A successful bid will mean a multibillion-dollar commitment — building stadiums, an Olympic village, and remaking Boston’s creaky transportation system.
And all that debt interest going for the Big Dig every month, too.
To critics, it seems an impossible, maybe ruinous dream, a distraction from the work needed to make a better city for those who live and work here. But who exactly is going to say no to John Fish?
Sort of like a godfather?
Already arguably the most influential business leader in Boston, his reach extends across the corporate world into politics, academia, and charities, where his activities often result in more business for Suffolk.
Known as former Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s favorite contractor, Fish and his company have nearly $6 billion in projects underway in Boston, including the 60-story Millennium Tower at the site of the former Filene’s Building downtown.
Related: Walsh Takes Up Residency
Fish's guy flopped out of the new regime.
Also see: Fallon's Friend
He is deputy chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, chairman of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and a founder of group of corporate leaders modeled after the Vault, the once-powerful organization of downtown business interests.
Time to put this story in the vault.
He sits on a long list of university, hospital, and nonprofit boards....
Meaning he is collecting dough for that.
You can go read the rest of the fawning profile featured on my front page today. I'm not complaining, I'm just re$igned to who the paper is of and for.
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