Remembering: John Morefield Jr. was 'a visionary, a good listener ...

John Morefield Jr. was all about communicating.

As president of Morefield Communications Inc. in Camp Hill, he sold telephone systems, data networks and high end multimedia equipment.

As a talented musician, he communicated peaceful feelings when he played the piano at work and at home. As a husband, father, employer and friend, he communicated love to family, friends and employees.

Morefield, who died Nov. 4, was equally skilled in talking, listening and providing business communications, his friends said. He was 78.

?John was a visionary, a good listener, and a straight shooter,? said Bob Minney, a Morefield Communications sales representative in Lancaster and a 35-year employee. ?He treated customers like he wanted to be treated.?

Morefield graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and soon went to work in the business his father founded. In 1964, he succeeded his father as company president, holding that position until he retired in 1999. From 1997 to 2010, he chaired the company board of directors.

In 1971, he entered the interconnect business, selling telephone systems capable of internal calling and calls over the public telephone network, engineered paging systems and pro audio. The company also opened a regional office in Altoona.

Michael Whiteman, company executive vice president of sales and marketing, called both good moves.

?John recognized market trends and understood the technology of many brand new products,? Whiteman said. ?He wasn?t afraid to take a calculated risk. In 1971, our business bought its own telephone system.?

Minney said that Morefield?s frugal side served him well in business.

?He realized that we could buy phone systems for companies instead of renting them from Bell Telephone,? he said. ?John used to say why rent something when you could buy it instead?

?We would sell systems to companies and install them,? Minney said. ?I remember one time he pulled a slide rule out of his pocket at a hospital, calculated and offered the hospital a discount. They took it.?

Chris Potalivo of State College, a Morefield sales representative, said that Morefield once rode with one employee to State College for a meeting, then took the bus back home.

?He was the president of the company and he took the bus,? Potalivo said. ?He also asked employees to be frugal. John cared about the employees. He used to say ?I wrote the rules. I know how to bend them.? I?ll miss his down-to-earth demeanor.?

When his career was winding down, Morefield starting working four days a week, then three, then two so others could assume some of his responsibilities.

?He had a transition plan and stuck to it,? said Whiteman, who said Morefield retired gracefully. ?After he retired, he got involved with MIT, serving on the board. I miss his intellect. He always had answers to our questions.?

Morefield also communicated with the community, serving as a Silver Spring Twp. supervisor and on such boards as the Harrisburg Symphony, United Way of the Capital Region, State Street Academy and the Carlisle Regional Performing Arts Center.

He was an active member of the Harrisburg Rotary since 1964, even leading a Rotary trip to India.

Morefield wasn?t all business, his employees said. Several recalled his love of music and said he kept a piano in the company conference room, occasionally playing it during the day.

Some recalled his sweet tooth.

?He always stayed trim,? Whiteman said, ?but he loved to end his day with an ice cream cone. He knew all the best places to get ice cream cones too. He used to take the sales representatives out for ice cream and treat us. We liked that.?

Source: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/11/remembering_john_morefield_jr.html

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