Catching up with . . . Stu Feldstein

When Stuart Feldstein first came to the Beacon Journal I kept calling him “Steinfeld,” transposing the syllables in his name. Just think, if I left the “t” out of my misnaming, Stu could have become a famous and rich comedian.

When I reminded Stu of that by email, he replied:

I didn't even remember the Steinfeld thing. At the BJ, Jim Ricci used to call me Stuberg, and various others called me Stuball, Feldberg, and a few other names I shouldn't mention.

At my request, Stu provided information on his life after the BJ:

I left the BJ in 1977 to join Business Week magazine in its Cleveland news bureau. In 1979, I got transferred to the New York HQ office, where I was editor of one of the news departments.

In 1982, I left the magazine (and daily/weekly journalism) to take a job with a corporate strategy consulting firm. In 1984, I struck out on my own and co-founded a company called SMR Research Corp. in Hackettstown, New Jersey. I'm still working there.

SMR makes an interesting little story for journalists depressed over the declining state of the newspaper and magazine industries. It had occurred to me that while I was at Business Week we did long cover stories about companies and industries, but despite the length, we left most of the material we gathered on the cutting room floor.

I thought to myself, “Hey, what if I took one of those company or industry stories, pumped it up to much larger size with tables and charts, and called it a research study? Wouldn't the company's competitors -- or the participants in an industry -- pay for a study like that? And couldn't I then keep the cash instead of giving it to Harold McGraw or John S. Knight?”

Well, this worked. At SMR we publish research studies on financial subjects, and we do other things as well like statistical modeling. We are well known in very small circles. I've done better financially than if I had stayed in daily journalism, and I get to work for myself. Have a few employees, too.

I got divorced from my first wife, and married a second in 1984 -- a wonderful lady named Carol. She got breast cancer and passed away in 1997. In 2004, I got married a third time (the last, I hope) to Stephanie Fava, whose nickname is Stevie. Met her in India during a trip arranged by a yoga outfit.

As you would imagine, I now have an extended family. I have two children (now in Pennsylvania and Colorado), plus three step-children here in NJ, and two grandchildren. My brother Steve still lives in Akron. My parents passed away some years back.

We live on a 20-acre farm in the northwest corner of NJ, near the PA border. It's the last really wild part of New Jersey, not at all like what you saw on the “Sopranos” series. We have the highest concentration of black bears in the country, and plenty of other wild critters, too. I grow berries on the farm, so encounters with creatures are a daily occurrence. We have a great little dog (a Hurricane Katrina rescue dog) who became a fine farm dog; she chases away the big animals and eats the rest.

That's my life story.

--------------------------------

Well, not quite. After a bit of Googling, I found that Stu is president and co-founder of SMR Research Corporation, which has an impressive clientele list.

Stu is a frequent speaker at financial industry conferences with 22 years of experience in financial research and consulting. He once was a Pulitzer Prize nominee for his financial reporting.

Click on the headline to see a photo of Stu and Stephanie on an elephant in India in 2001 during a trip arranged by a yoga outfit.

-------------------------------------

If there’s a former BJ colleague you’d like to know about, email their email and/or their U.S. mail address or their phone number to me at

jo4wvu@sbcglobal.net

and I’ll see what I can do. It doesn’t matter which department they worked in.