Books have been my companions, and I theirs, since my formative high school days. It all began with two very different faith-based pieces of fiction – Siddhartha and The Screwtape Letters.
I have been lucky enough to be a part of the book industry for my entire career. As a college senior I became an assistant manager at the venerable Kroch’s and Brentano’s Bookstores. From there Jan Berenstain, of the Berenstain Bears, pointed me to a small publisher in New York called Random House. I have worked as a director of sales and marketing for a library book binding company and managed a denominational bookstore/publishing house.
Most of my work has taken place within HarperCollins where I had the pleasure of selling books for Harper New York, Harper San Francisco, Zondervan, and the merged companies of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. While my key area of emphasis has been sales, I have been a part of publication decision making since the beginning. I also served as publisher at Zondervan where I managed editorial and marketing groups.
Over the past few years I have begun consulting with a variety of publishers and non-profits in supply chain distribution, editorial, sales, and marketing. Bringing creative ideas to retail has been my mantra for all these years.