FROM THE EDITOR Volume 39 / Issue 6
A new era! BY SARAH JACKSON
I PUBLISHER Janis Hall / jhall@mngoodage.com
CO-PUBLISHER AND SALES MANAGER Terry Gahan / tgahan@mngoodage.com
GENERAL MANAGER Zoe Gahan / zgahan@mngoodage.com
EDITOR Sarah Jackson / editor@mngoodage.com
CONTRIBUTORS Hannah Caitlin, Ed Dykhuizen, Carol Hall, Julie Kendrick, Dave Nimmer, Christina Sandok, Tracy Walsh
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Valerie Moe
ART DIRECTOR Dani Cunningham
CIRCULATION Marlo Johnson / distribution@mngoodage.com
37,000 copies of Minnesota Good Age are distributed to homes and businesses metro-wide. Minnesota Good Age (ISSN 2333-3197) is published monthly by Minnesota Premier Publications. Minnesota Good Age, 1115 Hennepin Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55403 © 2020 Minnesota Premier Publications, Inc. To receive Good Age by mail, send a check for $18 with “Good Age subscription” in the memo.
6 | July/August 2020 | Minnesota Good Age
’ve been a journalist for about 20 years and, in my time, I’ve had some pretty amazing mentors at newspapers and magazines. But one who truly stands out is Kathleen Childers. As editor-in-chief of Gardening How-To magazine — where I worked before coming to Good Age — she hired me to be her second-incommand managing editor. I quickly saw she was extremely talented and had high standards. I could scarcely believe she hired me to work at a 400,000-circulation national magazine! Photo by Tracy Walsh But she had something special I hadn’t quite seen in a leader firsthand. She had a quiet grace. She led by example. She didn’t get irritated or annoyed. She just got things done. And she treated everyone with the deepest respect. She could give you feedback and you didn’t feel bad about it. You, oddly, felt better — nurtured, developed, groomed for something better. She could also roll with anything. (And we rolled through some bizarre times indeed at that company, which gradually lost its way and had to close.) Had I not met Kathy, I never would have been ready to take on a management role, like I did here. Thanks to her example of calm leadership — mixed with a standard of always striving for more — I was able to grow exponentially. So imagine how it feels, eight years later, to have her taking over the helm of this magazine: Amazing! Full disclosure: Although I started a different job a couple months ago, I stayed on as an interim editor to make sure we could get our next issue out smoothly — and find just the right editor to fill the role. And that’s when Kathy stepped up to take Good Age into its next era! Kathy is a true professional with 30-plus years of experience in writing and editing content for magazines, books, websites and videos. And she’s already working on a variety of terrific stories for the over-50 audience of Good Age. As a long-time residents of the Twin Cities, she and her husband enjoy biking, cooking, gardening, traveling, entertaining and hanging out with their children and grandchildren. Yes, she has grandchildren, which means she’s right in the wheelhouse of Good Age as an active, thoughtful senior. So next month, please give a warm welcome to Kathy. I predict you’ll soon see Good Age rise to a whole new level.