Tag Archives: Obituaries
Sun-Sentinel assistant biz editor dies at 61 from cancer
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Lynn Gomez, an assistant business editor at The South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, has died at the age of 61 after battling cancer.
Sun-Sentinel staff writer Julie Patel writes, “After working for Reuters in London and New York, she moved back to Florida to be closer to her family in 1994. She joined the Sun-Sentinel again as a graphics editor and later became an assistant business editor.
“‘She was a stick of dynamite,’ said Christy Glonek, her sister-in-law. ‘She was really gregarious and outgoing and loved her work.’
“Family and friends say Ms. Gomez’s condominium in Fort Lauderdale was embellished with furniture she had re-upholstered herself, curtains she had sewn and walls she decorated with hand-painted ferns and palm trees.”
Read more here.
Pulitzer-winning biz reporter dies at 92
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Business reporter Austin C. Wehrwein, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for writing about the Canadian economy in the Milwaukee Sentinel, died Tuesday at the age of 92.
Journal Sentinel reporter Amy Rabideau Silvers writes, “Wehrwein won the prize for international reporting, writing a 25-part series called ‘Canada’s New Century.’ Wehrwein died of natural causes Tuesday at home in St. Paul, Minn. He was 92.
“Wehrwein traveled Canada coast to coast — by foot, train, plane and car — often writing on the run in hotel rooms. His stories told of Canadian economic development from the point of view of the everyday citizen. Wehrwein reported from the nation’s wheat fields and pulpwood forests, new natural gas and oil fields, developing mine operations, the docks of Toronto and Montreal, and the port of Vancouver.
“The series brought recognition of a neighbor and an economy that many Americans knew little about — and praise from Canadian officials, who hailed the series as ‘a most lucid and observant account’ that could only help to ‘foster good relations between our two countries.’”
Read more here.
Former NY Post, LA Herald Examiner biz editor dies at 80
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Jack Searles, the former business editor of the New York Post and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, has died at the age of 80, according to a post on an LA Times blog.
His son, Michael Searles, writes, “When the Mirror folded, Jack went to work for the L.A. Times as a general assignment reporter. Always somewhat restless, he left The Times and spent a year working for the San Diego Union. He then returned to The Times for several years.
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“In 1963, he picked up and moved to New York to accept a position as business editor of the New York Post. Soon, he was drawn back to L.A. taking over as business editor for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner from 1964 until sometime in the early 1980s. He stayed with the paper during the turbulent strike years.
“When he left the Herald he very briefly dipped his toes in public relations, accepting a personal services contract with Armand Hammer, head of L.A.-based Occidental Petroleum. Hammer and Jack quickly realized that he was not built to be a PR man, so Hammer allowed Jack to finish off his contract by completing a Master of Arts in Journalism at UCLA during the brief period when UCLA offered such a degree.”
Read more here.
Thriving on grit and passion
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Jim Kelly of the Pacific Business News writes Friday about the paper’s founder and former editor, George Mason, who died earlier this week at 84.
Kelly wrote, “In 1971, PBN sued the state of Hawaii to collect 94 cents interest on a bill for an advertisement that the state was nearly five months late in paying. The lawsuit got big play and Mason said he was just trying to get the state to follow the law that required payments to vendors within 60 days or required that interest be paid.
“Annoyed when he placed phone calls and was asked by some executive’s secretary, ‘Who’s calling?’ he conducted his own survey on the phone manners of Hawaii’s top companies and pronounced them lousy.
“He delighted in coverage that tweaked the daily newspapers and loved it when his broadsides drew outraged replies. Politicians and labor leaders were regular targets, with a broad variety labeled ‘the worst ever’ by Mason, only to be replaced by a new crop of ‘worst evers’ after the next election or job action.
“Paul Addison, a PBN editor in the 1980s who now works for Bloomberg in London, called Mason ‘a no-nonsense publisher.’
“‘He treated all his staff extremely well and imbued respect and loyalty,’ he said. ‘He never interfered with editorial decisions and encouraged our journalists to get as many scoops as possible. George was especially proud of the ads we ran showing how we scooped [the Honolulu dailies] with major business stories.’”
Read more here.
Former BusinessWeek Washington bureau chief dies at 61
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Lee Walczak, who worked at BusinessWeek for three decades and was its Washington bureau chief for 20 years, died Friday due to pancreatic cancer. He was 61, according to a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The story stated, “At Business Week, his career spanned 37 years, starting as an editorial trainee in the Washington bureau of McGraw-Hill World News, which included the magazine, in 1969. He was in the New York news bureau from 1970 until 1971, when he returned to Washington. He became bureau chief in 1986 and was named a senior editor of the magazine in 1989.
“‘Lee Walczak was a brilliant reporter and editor in the Washington bureau of Business Week magazine — first as White House correspondent, then as bureau chief,’ said former Business Week editor in chief Steve Shepard, now the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.
“‘He covered seven presidents, from Nixon to Bush II. He was an insightful political analyst, a fine writer and a strong manager. He cared passionately about the craft of journalism — and the people he worked with in both Washington and New York. Feisty, articulate, and tough-minded, Lee was a great journalist and a good friend.’
“Mr. Walczak was a sports car enthusiast who raced his Porsche cars at tracks all over the Northeast.”
Read more here. Walczak had left BusinessWeek in 2006 and joined Bloomberg News.
Founder of Honolulu biz newspaper dies at 84
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George Mason, who helped found the Pacific Business News newspaper in Honolulu back in 1963 and served as its editor for 16 years, died Monday at his home. He was 84.
The weekly newspaper was sold to American City Business Journals in 1984.
A story on the paper’s web site stated, “Playing a hunch that Hawaii’s post-statehood business community was growing big enough to support a weekly newspaper dedicated to commerce, Mason and three investors founded Crossroads Press, the publisher of Pacific Business News. The first issue was published on March 18, 1963, and today PBN is one of the oldest continuously published business weeklies in the United States.
“Mason eventually bought out his partners and by 1967 the newspaper turned its first profit. In December 1984, he sold Crossroads Press to American City Business Journals, which still owns PBN today.
“‘George’s entrepreneurial spirit was unmatched in our community,’ said Larry Fuller, president and publisher of PBN. ‘He started the first independent weekly business newspaper in the country and made it work because of his vision and his dedication.’
“Mason served as president and publisher of PBN until 1992. From 1976 to 1992 he also was editor of PBN.”
Read more here.
Former Roanoke Times biz reporter dies from stroke
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Charles Stebbins, a former business reporter for the Roanoke Times, died Sunday from a stroke, according to a story in Monday’s newspaper.
Mike Allen wrote, “While Frances Stebbins wrote about churches and religion, her husband ran the bureau covering Roanoke County and Salem for 10 years, sending in stories using a teletype machine from an office on Roanoke College’s campus.
“Later he was made a business reporter, writing a consumer reports column called Quickline.
“Charles Stebbins never interjected his own opinions on the topics he covered — though he once made an exception on the topic of baseball. Though he once professed to being a fan of the sport, Stebbins tucked a note into a biography kept on file at The Roanoke Times. ‘With greedy players and mercenary owners, baseball is no longer a sport. It is a cutthroat business,’ he wrote. ‘This applies to most professional sports in the later decades of the 20th century.’
“Stebbins was old school. Over his lifetime he needed to write only about a dozen corrections for his stories, which never wasted words. He had little use for ‘flowery language,’ his wife said.”
Read more here.
Former Honolulu real estate reporter dies
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Jerry Tune, who covered Hawaii real estate for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin for decades, died Friday after an illness. He was 69.
Star-Bulletin reporter Rosemarie Bernardo wrote, “Tune started working at the Star-Bulletin in 1970. He covered the environment beat before moving to the business section. Former colleagues described him as a hard-working reporter who covered real estate extensively during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. ‘For many years, Jerry was synonymous with covering real estate and housing,’ said John Simonds, former managing editor and executive editor.
“He was very much on top of the home development activities, particularly on Oahu, during those years, Simonds said. ‘He was widely respected by people in the housing field as well as his peers.’
“For some time he almost single-handedly put the real estate section together for the Sunday paper. At the time, the Sunday paper was a joint effort published by the Star-Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser.
“‘Jerry was a very thorough, reliable and extremely fair-minded reporter,’ Simonds said. He further described him as likable, even-tempered and a good listener.”
Read more here.
Pittsburgh biz reporter dies after surgery
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C.M. Mortimer, a business reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review who covered the steel and coal industries, died Sunday following surgery. He was 54.
Tribune-Review staff writer Mary Pickels wrote, “Mortimer’s work covering the coal, steel and the mushroom industries, Oravecz said, led his colleagues on the business desk to jokingly refer to him as the ‘subterranean reporter.’
“‘He was well-liked by everybody on our business staff,’ he said. ‘We all worked together on things, and traded tips and sources. Chuck was very willing to do that and help people further their stories.’
“Mortimer won numerous awards during his tenure with the Tribune-Review, including honors from the Society of Professional Journalists Keystone State Pro Chapter’s Spotlight Contest; a Matrix Award, sponsored by The Association for Women in Communications Pittsburgh Professional Chapter; and a Pennsylvania Newspaper Association Keystone Press Award.”
Read more here.
Remembering a great editor
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Andrew Cohen, writing in the Ottawa Citizen, writes Tuesday about former Financial Post executive editor Dalton Robertson and how he made the business newspaper in Canada a great publication.
Cohen wrote, “‘Write me a little jewel,’ he would whisper softly. It was his usual appeal to find eloquence in earnings and poetry in profit. He desperately wanted writing to transcend cliché and move beyond the banality of the business pages of newspapers in the 1980s.
“And so you would leave his bright corner office and return to your little desk. And being young and eager to please, you would start scratching away. And later, much later, when you thought your jewel was cut and polished and brilliant, you would return to the corner office, head down, printout in hand.
“It wasn’t a jewel. It remained dross, which his small, penciled etchings would turn into gold. After all, that is what editors do: they make you look good.”
Read more here.