Talk:John H. Dowd

COI tag
I removed the COI tag to clear the backlog. The info seems pretty straightforward now.Timtempleton (talk) 21:28, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Dubious tag
RE: "Dowd joined Hershey Chocolate Company as Brands Manager and advanced to Vice President of New Business Development. He introduced brand management and marketing". How could he have been hired as Brands Manager, and then introduce brand management, since the position already existed? --Blainster (talk) 01:33, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

That is close to a word for word quote from this https://obits.pennlive.com/us/obituaries/pennlive/name/john-dowd-obituary?pid=2148709 obituary. I am not sure if this is staff written or family contributed. Even if it was staff written, obituaries are not necessarily the most reliable sources for career details.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:33, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

People Magazine profile?
The article claims there was a people magazine profile of Dowd. I tried finding it in a Google search, but the fact that there is a more recent John Dowd who was a key legal adviser to a former US president and who also did very big investigations on MLB in the 1990s, makes it hard to find information on this John Dowd. The claim of the People Magazine profile comes from this obituary I am left wondering was Dowd really the subject of a major article, or was it a very small entry, or was it something else. I have to admit having begun my undergrad at BYU when the chocolatier Merill J. Bateman was president I have the view chocolates are undervalued, but I also do not like when we claim lots of sources without being able to show and cite them. OK. Some would argue neither Bateman nor Dowd is exactly a chocolatier. Neither seems to have worked in the actual production, Bateman was an expert in the Trans national cocoa trade, and Dowd an ad man who only halfway through his career came to chocolate at all.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:42, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

I found the people magazine profile. It is here. It is mainly about the Reese's Pieces win. However it also tells us that earlier Dowd was the moving force behind Reese Cups being so successful. We also learn the name of the company Dowd was with before he came to Hershey, which is lacking from the article. Also that he was a ham radio operator. I am surprised that detail alone has not made Dowd twice as notable as he is in geek culture.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:38, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

What actually happened with ET
This source claims more about the ET issue and says Dowd took a big risk. It is however not clearly reliable, and it is even less clear on what basis they contradict Mars' claim that the outreach from Spielberger was not done to the right people.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:11, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Here is another source. I still stick with the contemporary, reliable Washington Post account most. Which logically suggests that Dowd had the chance to reject the deal entirely. The fact they quote Dowd worrying the alien was x-rated makes sense, and does not quite square with what comes here. I have to admit I want to find more on Dowd before ET, but I also want us to tell things as it happened. There is a lot of folklore around this event, but we have to be very careful with folklore.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:17, 8 September 2021 (UTC)