YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – No, my numbers aren’t off. I know it’s the 40th anniversary of The Business Journal that we’re celebrating this year.
But it’s been 39 years since I became part of the organization. That was courtesy of publisher Andrea Wood asking me to submit a photo from a January 1985 news conference at Youngstown State University conducted by two economists that I was covering for YSU’s student newspaper.
That led to a couple years of freelancing – both as a photographer and a reporter – before joining the staff for a five year-stint. I moved on to other jobs and came back in 2003. On and off, I’ve been here just shy of 39 of the paper’s 40 years.
My early freelance gigs included a one-on-one interview with former boxer Ray Mancini as he was beginning to explore a career in Hollywood and covering pretty much any lecturer visiting YSU that I could convince Andrea we should have a story on.
There also was an early story about the popularity and merchandising surrounding Star Trek following the release, in 1986, of the fourth movie in the series. But that was just for fun. (Stories about Superman and Batman also would make it into the paper over the years – go figure.)
Probably the first major news story that I was involved in covering was the announcement in March 1986 that Strouss-Kauffman would close its downtown department store. The morning that the news came down, another college student – Aundrea Cika – and I were the only reporters in the office.
We dashed downtown for the news conference with Mayor Pat Ungaro and other officials – no doubt feeling out of place among the daily media there, frankly – to gather material for the story that appeared in the April 1986 edition.
As heart-stopping as that event appeared – the loss of one of downtown’s remaining anchors – it paled in comparison to the announcement in 1989 that General Motors would cease building vans at its Lordstown plant. Over the years, there would be more trips to the plant complex, whether for stories directly concerning GM or to cover whatever political figure was stumping there, until and even after GM pulled out in 2019.
A lot of my time – then and now – focused on Youngstown, from development of the city’s industrial parks under Ungaro to the Youngstown 2010 plan (which contributed to the rise of Jay Williams, who became mayor and subsequently held posts in the Obama administration) to today, as downtown navigates the Smart2 project, the explosion at the Realty Tower and whatever ends up happening with the aforementioned Strouss building.
Over the years, those stories would include the saga of Avanti, a company whose fate was not helped by its CEO’s baffling threat that he would close the plant rather than let workers organize. There was the successful effort to bring a Toys R Us distribution center to the city and the rise of Phar-Mor Inc., as well as the beginnings of its fall, a demise that was taking place even as Andrea and I were driving back from covering the opening of the chain’s 300th store in Ashtabula.
And then there was Jim Traficant – lots of Traficant over the years – generally involving trips to his small office in the Newport area, where we’d wait to hear what he had to say and which of us reporters he would insult first.
Politics ended up being one of my beats, including generally serving as the primary reporter covering the presidential candidates and surrogates when they came through town. It’s because of this that my wife routinely refers to herself as being divorced during presidential election years.
You spend Valentine’s Day covering Hillary Clinton and your wife’s birthday the same year covering Michele Obama and you’re never allowed to forget it.
I would say the presidential election in 2008 was one of the more interesting ones locally, and particularly consequential for the Mahoning Valley. Because Super Tuesday hadn’t produced a clear winner in the contest for the Democratic nomination, Ohio was ground zero in the weeks leading up to the primary.
That made for interesting assignments such as having coffee downtown with Hillary Clinton surrogate Christine Lahti and participating in campaign conference calls in my parked car before and after other assignments.
It also was cool getting the chance the year before to question Barack Obama about health care – an issue that Clinton had found fixing was easier said than done – during a brief media availability following a local fundraiser.
Then, in 2016, I would be among the reporters accompanying Clinton and then-congressman Tim Ryan for a stop at a downtown bar following a rally before the primary.
Beyond politics, people whom I’ve covered or photographed over the years have run the gamut. Just to name a few, they’ve ranged from local business leaders such as Warren’s Alec Pendleton (whose brother, the actor Austin Pendleton, I met a few years ago) and the late Jim Winner in Sharon, Pa., who played key roles in the revitalization of those cities’ downtowns, to noted author Ray Bradbury and Youngstown’s own Dr. Amy Acton, who achieved statewide and nationwide recognition during the pandemic.
The Youngstown Business Incubator’s development – chronicled in this edition – is a topic I’ve frequently revisited over the years, from its early “incubator without walls” concept to the efforts to provide a physical presence and the growth of the downtown campus, including, memorably, covering the opening of what is now America Makes during a rain-soaked day in fall 2012.
A lot has gone on during the years that I’ve put in here – good and bad, high points and disappointments, both personally and for the area. It’s been interesting because that’s Youngstown. And it’ll continue to be interesting to see where we go from here.