Burt joined “the Jones” on September 3, 1991
By Andrew Harris
On September 3, 2023, Jones Memorial Hospital Community Relations Coordinator Judy Burt will take a final bow and end a successful career that spaned 32 years, exactly.
When Burt walked into Jones Memorial, William DiBerdino was the CEO and it was her “perfect job.”
“I have loved this job since the first day,” she said. “There were days when I first started that I would literally skip through the halls. Gradually I stopped skipping, but I still feel the same way when I walk into work – I’m skipping on the inside,” Judy said with a big smile.
As a marketing professional, the job has changed as much as the hospital itself. In the earlier days of her career, sending out a press release and photos was a big project. It required printing, collating, packing documents into manilla envelopes before they went to the United States Post Office! You can imagine Judy skipping up Pearl Street to the post office carrying dozens of large envelopes. Or at least down to the mail room.
One of the first technological innovations that marks Judy’s career was the fax machine, remember those?
“It was a game-changer! It made marketing work less expensive, less time consuming, and more immediate,” Burt recalls. She had no idea how much more change her career would experience:
“The Internet changed everything, information technology started a whole new career for me really.”
We asked Judy a few questions about her career at “The Jones:”
Sun: Looking back, what was the most important thing that this job required ?
Burt: Definately a sense of humor, you have to be able to laugh, especially at yourself
Sun: What was the best thing that happened while you were on the job?
Burt: When we became an affiliate of the University of Rochester and they provided ‘branding guidelines.’ That saved me so much time because there are specific guidelines you have to follow for publications, signs, and logos. Saving time is very important to a part-time, one-person department.
Sun: What was the worst thing ?
Burt: The Christmas day cyber-attack in 2017 was horrible. On a normally quiet day of the year, we all had to scramble to keep the place running. We’d grown accustomed to the network and had to suddenly revert to paper. It was very jarring and it felt like an attack against us. Happening on Christmas day just made worse.”
Sun: What are the plans for Judy Burt in retirement?
Burt: I plan to work toward becoming a certified grant writer because I can do that from anywhere on my own schedule. My husband Scott and I own the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame and the Police Gazette Boxing Corporation in Belfast and we are going somewhere at least once a month to present medallions and belts at bare knuckle promotions in the US and around the world. In the past year, we have traveled to the London over ten times and I’m looking forward to exploring more of the places we go because I won’t have to get back for work!
At this point, Burt’s replacement at Jones Memorial, Suzanne Male, who joined us for our chat, eyes got wide and realized that she and Judy had a deeper connection:
“Wow, you own the Bare Knuckle? I grew up in the Muldoon house!! My parents still live there!”
Male and Burt had not realized this ‘small world’ connection until it came up in during this interview.
Here is a little background to better understand this little bit of serendipity:
*William Muldoon, born in Belfast NY, is known as one of the godfathers of bare knuckle boxing. From his Wikipedia page: “
“In 1889 Muldoon trained John L. Sullivan for his famous 75-round fight against Jake Kilrain for the world heavyweight bare-knuckle boxing championship. He had done so on a friendly wager and offered to absorb expenses if Sullivan lost. Sullivan won and Muldoon gained national notice for restoring the boxing champion to fighting form. Muldoon’s methods for accomplishing Sullivan’s rejuvenation drew much public interest.”
Since the Burt’s founded the Bare Knuckle Boxing Hall of Fame in 2008, Judy’s husband Scott often brings boxers who want to train using the “Muldoon Method” to the Muldoon homestead, now the owned by Suzanne’s parents Kathy and Spike Jones.
With that connection made we wrapped up the interview with asking Suzanne if she had any questions for Burt as she sunsets at the “Jones.”
Suzanne Male: What are your main tools for gathering and disseminating information ?
Burt: *with laughter* Google !!!!
If you see Judy, be sure to congratulate her on over three decades of service to the community and our beloved Jones Memorial Hospital. Be sure to connect with the family business to keep tabs on her next chapter.
Bareknuckleboxinghalloffame.com
Read the recent announcement about Suzy Male taking over Judy Burt’s role at the “Jones”. Male’s maiden name is Jones!!! So many cowinkydinks!!
