"The Irish in me keeps me forever grounded, always in search of self-improvement, always looking for creative ways to do it better." -A.J. Gerritson

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? That’s a tough one. But do you know the temperature at which paper burns? A. J. Gerritson does, and in fact he branded it on his company’s name.
In true 21st century style, Gerritson and his founding co-partner, Nicholas Lowe, discerning the need for new, on-line approaches to communications and marketing, created the firm of 451 Marketing in 2004, naming it after Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, Fahrenheit 451.

Bradbury wrote his entire novel in the basement of UCLA’s Powell Library on a pay typewriter that he rented for ten cents an hour. In contrast, Gerritson today works out of a Boston high rise on North Washington Street where he, four other partners, and a staff of 35 build brand awareness, create fan loyalty (Red Sox take note!), and drive business through a cutting-edge communications approach that unites public relations, social media, and search engine marketing.
“Too hot for paper,” declares Gerritson, who saw the Internet in its infancy as more than just a shopping mall.
That’s a lot those of us who fumble through a pocket dial or an iPhone calendar to absorb, but such refined communication and marketing approaches are as groundbreaking as Bradbury’s masterpiece. In 2011 and again this year, 451 Marketing (451marketing.com) was recognized as a Boston Business Journal Pacesetter, an award recognizing the 50 fastest growing private companies in Massachusetts. 
A “Type A” personality from central casting who gives the term new meaning, Gerritson, a third-generation Irish American with family ties to Cork and Cavan, is also president of the Boston Irish Business Association (BIBA), a non-profit organization, originally established in 1990 as ICCUSA (Ireland Chamber of Commerce-USA), which merged with the Boston-based Irish Networking Society (INS) in 2009.
BIBA, with 650 members, is committed to fostering economic and professional growth among a progressive network of business and political leaders, while retaining and strengthening ties to Ireland and around the world.
“The Irish in me keeps me forever grounded, always in search of self-improvement, always looking for creative ways to do it better,” Gerritson, 35, said in an interview.
A.J.’s given name is Arlen Jeffrey, but in parochial Boston “no one got it,” he says. “They couldn’t get through the name, alien to them. So I changed it to A.J. on advice from a friend.”
Good branding. Today, the initials stick like superglue in the Hub business community.
Gerritson confers much of the credit for his business acumen and personal drive on his maternal grandfather, Charles McGowan, a former State House Sergeant At Arms, a former state representative and a Dedham selectman for 15 years. “He taught me about compassion, street sense, and passion for life. I’m probably most like him, gregarious in nature.”
McGowan played a key role hand in the raising of the young Gerritson after his parents separated. Gerritson’s father, Stephen, is head of economic development for a Seattle firm. His mother, Alicen, is the director of an alcohol and substance abuse organization on Cape Cod and lives in Wareham. His sister, Sasha, is an opera singer in Chicago.
Growing up in suburban Dedham, Gerritson early on applied his talents to sports. Today, you might call him an urbane jock. At Dedham High School, he played three varsity sports — football, wrestling, and baseball. Positions on the playing fields and in the workplace often say a lot about a person’s nature. In football, he played linebacker and was a blocking back on offense. In wrestling, he was a heavyweight with a 225-pound frame that still stands out in any setting. In baseball, he played first base, knocking down screaming infield liners. Oh, he was a good student, as well.
The Dedham jock took his body and brain to UMass in Amherst, where he earned a degree in journalism, captained the Men’s Rugby Team, and was named a two time All-America, playing the position of “prop,” usually reserved for the sturdiest players on the team who attack in size and strength, plunging into a defensive line like a battering ram.
Get the picture?
After college ,when he couldn’t find work in a newsroom (most gruff editors probably would have been intimidated), Gerritson worked briefly in recruiting as a headhunter for Franklin Pierce Associates in Boston, then opted for some headhunting abroad. For a year and a half, he played professional rugby in Limerick in the All Ireland League for the Young Muster Rugby Football Club, supporting himself with a rugby stipend and tips from pouring Guinness at the celebrated Peter Clohessy’s Sports Bar, a rugby haven in the heart of Limerick, owned by ex-Munster and Ireland prop Clohessy.
“My time in Ireland transformed me,” says Gerritson. “The Irish are so engaging, so personal; it’s contagious.”
He remembers the day in Limerick near the River Shannon when a frail 80-year-old woman chatted him up on the street. The conversation quickly turned from small talk to sports.
“You know,” she said, “You play a good game, but…”
She then proceeded to instruct Gerritson on the fine points of playing prop.
It was at that point, he realized, as Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz: ‘We’re not in Kansas any more.’
Kansas can’t compete with Ireland and no one knows that better than Gerritson. He returned to the states in 2003, becoming vice president of public relations for AsiaFoods.com, an on-line company that specialized in the import and distribution of Asian foods into mainstream marketplaces. Gerritson built the company from the ground up, positioning it for a successful acquisition. He was then hired as vice president at Zeeo Interactive, an award-winning interactive Boston marketing and digital advertising agency with a client list that included Time Warner and Disney.
Still, he found time for the playing fields, joining the Boston Irish Wolfhounds Rugby Football Club and leading them to two USA Rugby Division 1 national titles in 2003 and 2004.
Division titles are impressive on a shelf or framed on a wall, but family is the foundation stone of Gerritson’s life. He is married to Meghan (Toland), whom he met at a BIBA function; the couple lives in Hull with their 11-month-old son, Jack. Family, indeed, is the prism through which Gerritson views life, at home, at the office, and beyond. He sits on the Board of Directors for Junior Achievement of Northern New England and the March of Dimes in Boston.
Gerritson is always looking for ways to optimize what’s put before him. And so it is with social media. How a guy who once lumped as a landscaper, drove quarterbacks into the turf, and then made mincemeat on the rugby field, has the panache to master social media in ways that open fertile doors for clients is testimony to his extraordinary range.
Diffident in an Irish way, Gerritson says is all about “vision, excellence, and pursuit.” And it doesn’t hurt, he concedes, to have self-confidence, honed communication skills, and grandfather McGowan’s intense passion. You can book him on-line for a motivational speaking engagement.
“You can’t go wrong with A.J.,” says Samantha Dawson Hammer, Economics Initiative Director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority.
It’s a chorus heard today throughout Boston, and likely also in the backyard of his Hull home, as Gerritson prepares to teach young Jack the art of a scrum.

Greg O’Brien, president of the Stony Brook Group, a publishing and political consulting/communications firm based on Cape Cod, is the author/editor of several books. He also writes for various regional and national publications.