Habitat 1982-

It started with a handshake. In March 1982, I was all of 25 and I had been without a full-time job for a year or so. My first gig out of college had been at Firehouse magazine (1978-1981), where I learned all I ever wanted to know about the fire service industry. After two-and-a-half years on that job, first as assistant editor and then as associate editor, I had had enough. I left for a gig at Americana magazine – which started as a promising partnership and ended up a disaster. I left after six months – writing about firefighters was more my thing apparently than making rocking chairs seem interesting – and I took off for a year to write my first book, produce cable TV's Videosyncracies, and discover improvisation. And then I got my job at Habitat. Carol Ott, the red-headed publisher of a new magazine about cooperative housing corporations, asked me point blank: "Do you know much about co-ops?" "No," I replied. "But I didn't know much about firefighters when I started at Firehouse, and I knew a lot by the time I left." Apparently, it was a good answer. The next day, Carol hired me. We shook hands on the deal and I've been there every since. And I actually do know more about co-ops now.   

  TS with (from left to right, top to bottom) ad director Jeff Stein, art director Michael Gentile, ops director Jennifer Wu,
writers Ruth Ford,       Alan Saly,  Frank Lovece, Bill Morris, former intern Haley Ott;