Hall of Fame Portrait: Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., Part 2

On December 3, 2009, AEP will induct Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D, MDR; Michael Ross, Encyclopaedia Britannica; and Pleasant Rowland, Rowland Reading Foundation and American Girl, into the Educational Publishing Hall of Fame. Here in his second installment, Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., President, EdNET at MDR, discusses the greatest challenge he faced during his career and his proudest accomplishment.

What was the greatest challenge you faced in your career, and how did you handle it?

I suppose my greatest challenge was when, in late 1987, I lost my job at SFN and Scott, Foresman due to liquidation of our publicly traded parent company and the sale of its component companies to a host of information and publishing organizations. At 47 I found it impossible to match that job or salary in another publishing firm and reluctantly tried my hand at consulting.

Hall of Fame Portrait: Michael Ross Part 2

On December 3, 2009, AEP will induct Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., MDR; Michael Ross, Encyclopaedia Britannica; and Pleasant Rowland, Rowland Reading Foundation and American Girl into the Educational Publishing Hall of Fame. Here in his second installment, Michael Ross, Senior VP, Education General Manager for Encyclopaedia Britannica, discusses the greatest challenge he faced during his career and his proudest accomplishment.

What was the greatest challenge you faced in your career, and how did you handle it?

When my oldest daughter was four, her mother died suddenly. I was 36 years old, still very early in my career, and what was already a difficult job and huge responsibility—being a new father—now seemed like an impossible role to fill, alone, on top of the demands of my day job. As an editorial director for an educational publisher, I was required to travel, manage a team of in-house and freelance editors, meet budgets, train the sales force, and produce over 50 profitable titles a year. I couldn’t do all of that and take care of a young child who had just lost her mother, and I refused to compromise when it came to her comfort. So, in essence, I put my career on hold, traveled less, even turned down job offers that would have required me to move to other cities, and did what I could to fulfill my professional responsibilities while prioritizing my daughter’s needs.

Hall of Fame Portrait: Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., Part 1

On December 3, 2009, AEP will induct Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D, MDR; Michael Ross, Encyclopaedia Britannica; and Pleasant Rowland, Rowland Reading Foundation and American Girl into the Educational Publishing Hall of Fame. Here in his first installment, Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., President, EdNET at MDR, discusses the people who had the greatest influence on him and the advice he would give to those choosing educational publishing as a career.

Who has had the biggest influence on your career and why?

I’ve been fortunate in my career to have had many mentors so it is very hard to single out just one. Names that come to mind include Dick Roberts, Corp VP at SFN where I had my first job in K-12 educational publishing; Dick Morgan, president of Scott Foresman and, later, of the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Joint Venture and, still later, of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, for whom I first worked and later was a consultant; my wife Pam who worked alongside me at The Heller Reports for many years and from whom I continue to learn; Andy Lacy, former president of QED and now Senior Leader, Professional Services at MDR, whose broad vision for The Heller Reports as a part of QED and now MDR provided a broader canvas for me and the firm; and Vicki Bigham and Anne Wujcik, my stalwart colleagues at The Heller Reports, who taught me so much about schools, teachers and the people in our industry.

Hall of Fame Portrait: Michael Ross Part 1

On December 3, 2009, AEP will induct Nelson B. Heller, Ph.D., MDR; Michael Ross, Encyclopaedia Britannica; and Pleasant Rowland, Rowland Reading Foundation and American Girl into the Educational Publishing Hall of Fame. Here in his first installment, Michael Ross, Senior VP, Education General Manager for Encyclopaedia Britannica, discusses the person who had the greatest influence on him and the advice he would give to those choosing educational publishing as a career.

Who has had the biggest influence on your career and why?

Probably the person who has had the biggest influence on my career was my first boss in publishing. Causa “Dick” Barry was a veteran newspaper guy who had covered the Korean and Vietnam wars with the Stars and Stripes in Asia, first as a reporter and later as a bureau chief. He was the bureau chief and my mentor when I was working at Time-Life Books in Tokyo. He understood and instilled in me several important lessons: the meaning of a deadline; accuracy and clarity as hallmarks of the editorial process; and accountability to your readers. In Dick’s prior roles, getting something right could have meant life or death, and he approached all of his work with that intensity.