2010 Publishing Executive Hall of Fame Inductees Announced; Cengage SVP Among Honorees
Book Business and Publishing Executive magazines have announced the 2010 inductees into the Publishing Executive Hall of Fame, the industry's most prestigious awards recognition for excellence in book and magazine publishing production and manufacturing. Now in its 21st year, the Hall of Fame recognizes several outstanding individuals each year for their achievements in manufacturing and production, and for their significant contributions to the magazine and book publishing industries.
This year's inductees are:
* Ken Brooks , senior vice president, global production and manufacturing services, Cengage Learning
* Bill Amstutz , director of publishing operations and strategic planning, NewBay Media
* Michael Lonier , CIO, executive vice president of operations, The Deal
And this year, for the first time ever, an Honorary Induction is being awarded to:
* Robert M. Sacks , aka BoSacks, Partner, mediaIDEAS, and President, Precision Media Group
ABOUT THE INDUCTEES
Ken Brooks
As senior vice president, global production and manufacturing services at Cengage Learning (formerly Thomson Learning), Brooks is responsible for the development, production and manufacturing of textbooks and reference content in print and digital formats. Previously, he was president and founder of Publishing Dimensions, a digital content services company focused in the e-book and digital strategy space.
Over the course of his career, Brooks has founded a Philippines-based text conversion company; a public domain publishing imprint; and a distribution-center based print-on-demand operation, and worked in trade, professional, higher education and K-12 publishing sectors. He has held several senior management positions in publishing, including vice president of digital content at Barnes & Noble, vice president of operations, production, and strategic planning at Bantam Doubleday Dell, and vice president of customer operations at Simon & Schuster. Prior to his entry into publishing, he was a senior manager in Andersen Consulting's logistics strategy practice.
Bill Amstutz
As director of NewBay Media's publishing operations and planning, Amstutz oversees NewBay's production of more than 40 publications and show dailies, 30 daily and weekly e-newsletters, three expos and more than 50 custom publishing efforts annually. He has worked with NewBay since 2007. He was former managing partner of Strategic Media Operations consultancy, and chief audience officer at BizBash Media, a publisher of venue and supplier directories, magazines and e-newsletters, Web sites, trade shows and awards shows.
Prior to that, Amstutz was senior vice president of operations for CMP Media (1991-2006); senior vice president of operations for Miller Freedman; senior vice president of audience marketing and development for CMP Media. He also held positions as senior vice president at United Business Media and vice president of production at Miller Freeman, as well as customer service manager for Prepress Assembly Inc. He is a founding member of the Publishers Production Forum, serves on Publishing Executive magazine's editorial advisory board, and has served as chair of the Publishing Business Conference & Expo.
Michael Lonier
As the CIO and vice president of operations at The Deal LLC-a financial information provider-Lonier is responsible for digital product development, technical operations, audience development, production, manufacturing and distribution. Working closely with The Deal's CEO Kevin Worth, Lonier has led a technology and product transformation, changing The Deal from a traditional diversified b-to-b media company, with publications and related digital products and events, into a high-value enterprise-licensed financial information service provider. To drive this transformation, he assembled new IT and operations teams, built out new technology infrastructure, and replaced The Deal's content management platform, leading to the October 2008 launch of The Deal Pipeline, a proprietary blend of deal news and transaction content that is now part of the daily Web-based and mobile workflow of large law firms, investment banks, fund managers, and advisors.
Before joining The Deal five years ago, Lonier was a technology and operations executive for U.S. News and Thomson Reuters Healthcare. He also worked as a photographer, art director, and production manager at Cincinnati magazine before joining Time Inc., eventually becoming the corporate editorial production manager and then the architect of Time Inc's IMPACT Center, which pioneered the first full-color text and graphics digital prepress, producing more than 14,000 color pages annually, transmitting via private satellite network to 10 domestic and six international printing locations.
Lonier and his wife, Elaine Y. Fry, left Time to start Yuey/Lonier Inc., a technology and operations consulting firm, and soon thereafter, a division, The Color Bureau, a digital prepress and photo studio. For a decade, they managed dozens of technology and operations projects for firms such as Chemical Week, NBC, Saks, Nordstrom, The New Yorker, Times Mirror, and many others. He is member of the American Business Media Business Information Committee, the PubTec user group, and has been a member of the adjunct faculties of the Department of Photography at SUNY-FIT and the Visual Arts Dept. at Ramapo College (N.J.).
Bob Sacks
Sacks has nearly 40 years of experience in publishing, from start-ups to fortune 500 companies. He has held positions ranging from publisher, director of manufacturing and distribution, production director, editor, and sales manager. In 1998, he founded Precision Media Group, a consultancy to printers, publishers, web producers and media start-ups. He also is a partner in mediaIDEAS, a research and strategic publishing-industry consulting company, and the publisher/editor of a daily media industry newsletter, Heard on the Web.
Previously, Sacks served as director of manufacturing and distribution for Bill Communications Inc. (VNU), and was corporate director of all magazine titles and directories, where he supervised five divisions with 15 monthly titles and many sibling publications. He also negotiated contracts, purchased paper, oversaw manufacturing budgets and all production personnel, among other responsibilities. Sacks also served in other positions including group production director for CMP Publications; assistant production director for Ziff-Davis Publications; senior account manager for International Paper Corp.; and director of production for McCall's Publishing.
Perhaps his claim to fame, though, is his role as a "founding father" of High Times Magazine (Trans-High Corp.), where he served as vice president/production director from 1974-1985, with total responsibility for all production and purchasing of national monthly magazines of 600M+ circulation, including negotiation of all contracts, purchasing of all paper, 4/c separations, composition (in-house) and binding.
Sacks has been a columnist for Publishing Executive magazine for more than five years, and is a regular blogger on Publishing Executive's website, PubExec.com. He has been a member of and involved with numerous industry organizations, including Publishers Production Forum, Women in Production, Magazine Publishers of America/Paper Committee, Association of Publication Production Managers (where he was a member of the Board of Directors), among many others. He is a frequent speaker at publishing industry events and universities, and continues to serve as mentor to many publishing executives in all areas of publishing.
ABOUT THE HALL OF FAME
Each year, exceptional professionals from the printing and production industry are inducted into the Publishing Executive Hall of Fame.The inductees, nominated by their peers and then selected by Publishing Executive and Book Business magazines' editorial staff and advisory boards, represent the best of the best. Previous inductees hail from companies such as Scholastic, U.S. News & World Report, McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Forbes, Wiley, Consumers Union, World Book, Condé Nast Publications, and many others. You can view previous inductees here.
The 2010 Hall of Fame inductees will be honored for their outstanding achievements and contributions to the industry at the Gold Ink Awards & Hall of Fame Gala, Monday, Oct. 4, at the Hyatt Regency, McCormick Place in Chicago, during Graph Expo.
Click here to book a table or reserve an individual seat. Or, for information on tickets or sponsorships of the Gold Ink/Hall of Fame Awards dinner, contact Mike Cooper at mcooper@napco.com or (215) 238-5434.