Catching up with . . . Mike Williams

Mike Williams, who will be the guest of honor at his retirement party Friday, provides this information about his journey through the BJ and life:

Mike Williams

John,

Thanks for asking.

I started in Advertising part-time in May or June 1968 after bugging Ben James near to death for a job during visits home from a freshman year at Ohio State. I ran proofs to the downtown department stores and pulled tearsheets (had to be told what a tearsheet was) during three more years of college at Kent State. After a break in service following graduation, Retail Ad Mgr. Jim Muckley hired me full-time in 1971 in the Ad Services department. 

In 1976 I went to work for John Grimm in Makeup. John didn't know what to make of me, and I did not know what to make of him. After a couple of months I began to settle down (married Jane Delgado about that time, after a match-making effort by former BJ employee Beverly Wilson). 

Jane and I have been together 36 years. We have two sons: Nathan, 33, an independent trucker, and Trevor, 31, a chemical engineer. No daughters-in-law or grandchildren.

One of the perks in Makeup was getting to visit most departments of the paper in a day's work. I got to appreciate the pressroom and engraving/stereotype departments, the paperhandlers and composing staff as well as the ad sales staff. 

I watched John field all the approaches that come naturally to a sales force (he was once an ad salesman himself) as they sought to achieve the best ad placements. 

I got to listen when John Knight's chauffeur dropped in for a chat while waiting for his boss's call.

Then there was the newsroom: always a tug over newshole between the business and editorial departments. I learned well enough from John for editor Paul Poorman to refer to me as "Grimm's Reaper." Later, just before John's retirement party, I visited Paul at his home in Kent and captured some genuinely kind words of respect for the man.

Makeup was the first department involved in preparing for computerized pagination. I got very interested, which later led to about 12 years in the IT department. After the BJ sale, I moved into Advertising Art, with a tech portfolio.

In about 12 days, Jane and I are going to spend some time down in Ecuador, up in the mountains, where the days and nights are equal, and the temperature is springlike year-round. She speaks Spanish much better than I, which means I'll have to stay very close.

--mike

Bon voyage, Mike! And Jane! New adventures are the most exciting in life.