The truth is, I don’t like change much. I don’t consider myself a complacent person: I’ve always strived to move upward, take on new challenges and improve myself. But like most of us, the chaotic nature of change – particularly major change – is offsetting to me.
So when the staff of Randall-Reilly Publishing’s flagship trucking magazine Commercial Carrier Journal approached me about becoming its executive editor, my initial response was, ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ After all, I grew up – professionally speaking – in Randall-Reilly’s Construction Media Group. I worked 11 years on Equipment World – our company’s heavy construction magazine – before taking on the challenge of launching and establishing Total Landscape Care two years ago. I was happy: I enjoyed the excitement and passion of our readers. I loved creating a magazine every month that celebrated your accomplishments and helped you acquire new skills and techniques for making your businesses and industry gain strength and respect both nationally and locally.
Yet, in the end – after much debate – I took the other job. It wasn’t an easy decision – a sure sign of my dedication to Total Landscape Care and to its editorial director, Marcia Gruver, to whom I owe a professional debt that I can never hope to repay. On the other hand, I’d spent more than a decade building a reputation in the trucking industry, and it seemed like a waste to squander that experience.
And so I’m leaving TLC – a magazine on the verge of its second birthday, for CCJ, a magazine that will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2011. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I leave knowing that our editorial staff here has worked diligently for months to find the best editor possible to take over TLC’s helm. You will meet him in this column next month, and I won’t steal his thunder here today. It’s enough to say now that he is chomping at the bit and ready to go.
I will miss TLC and follow it from afar as it prospers along with the industry it serves. I’ll also miss the great friends – landscapers and OEM professionals – that I’ve worked with over the past years. I feel like TLC is off to a great start and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for this great magazine and its incredible staff.
