MOVIN' ON UP: A little item in this morning's PD about Lorna Wisham's new job is another reminder of how fast your star can rise in the executive offices at City Hall, even if the voters decide they're not too happy with your boss's performance.

Wisham joined Mayor Campbell's staff in February 2002, fresh from three years as a marketing staff for the Downtown Cleveland Partnership. Four years later -- having served as interim Community Relations Director for ten months, then as the Mayor's Chief Public Affairs Officer for two years (during which Campbell's public approval collapsed) -- Wisham is leaving City Hall as the new "regional vice-president for external affairs" for CEI/First Energy.

Quite a career curve, eh?

I've been in a few meetings with Wisham. I liked her. She's smart, sensible, businesslike and friendly -- just the kind of new face that First Energy needs to put forward to public officials, media and "the community". I'm sure she'll be worth every penny of her considerable paycheck.

As will David Fitz, who came back to the area looking for work after a gig staffing a city councilman in Philadelphia, got a research job with our City Council, then became Campbell's press secretary a year and a half ago... and is now, mirabile dictu, the new Director of Public & Media Relations for the Cleveland Clinic.

As will Chris Ronayne, who attached himself to Campbell as a young planner, staffed her at the County Commission, managed her first campaign for Mayor, became her City Planning Director and chief of staff... and has now leapt gracefully to the top job at University Circle, Inc. (The last two people who held that job are now, respectively, the executive director of the Gund Foundation and the "senior vice president for corporate diversity" at National City.)

See how it works? For an ambitious staffer, the Mayor's Office is a career elevator that only goes up. If your boss does well, you have a shot at getting to the Big Show in Columbus... the inside circle of a governor, or maybe, some day, a cabinet job of your own. But even if your Mayor crashes and burns, the elevator doesn't take you back down to where you started -- it leaves you off on an upper floor anyway. Assuming, of course, that you've been careful to make the right friends.

It's a compelling reason for young public servants at City Hall to be very, very nice to the Important People -- like utility and hospital executives -- that they meet on City business.