Roland Hopkins Founder's Message: New York Real Estate Journal celebrates 25 years of success

In 1963 the weekly New England Real Estate Journal (NEREJ) was launched. The mid 1960s brought about a booming commercial real estate industry. The Big Apple was always a hot commercial real estate area and was able to support two publications Real Estate Weekly and Realty. In 1988 during Reaganomics when everyone was making more money than they knew what to do with and the New England Real Estate Journal had grown so big that it was publishing twice a week, I decided to take a shot in the country's largest business market, New York City. Why? Good question. New York already had magazines and newspapers covering every business, so that should have been the last place any sane businessman would try and launch a competing venture. Over the years I had been honored with lots of compliments on the NEREJ's success, but no one had ever accused me of being smart, or even sane. So I debated with the mirror and decided I would do it as a challenge. The chance of success was about one in a 100, but I would try it anyway. The New York Real Estate Journal (NYREJ) started out OK following the same successful format as the NEREJ that had grown to be the largest newspaper of its kind in the country. In New York we were immediately unique by covering the entire state (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany and Long Island) while the already successful competitors concentrated only on Manhattan. Oops. Almost like overnight, Reaganomics ended and the country went into a horrible recession that hit the commercial real estate industry much harder than most. The twice-a-week NEREJ paper immediately went back to once a week, I laid off 12 employees out of the 44 and seriously debated closing the new New York Real Estate Journal. Then Realty closed its doors. "What should I do?" I asked myself. "Did I fail the challenge?" My best salesperson and mentor Bob Lewis had retired the previous year. But I was still young and full of energy, so after debating in the mirror I decided to treat it as an entirely new business in the same manner I had done 25 years earlier with the NEREJ. "It worked then, why not now?" I asked myself. And with great support from an experienced staff and even though that recession lasted three long years, we pulled it off. Through the years I had some great NYREJ publishers including Barbara Malley, Linda Christman, Brian Heneghan, Ian Sutherland, Tom Murray and many more. The paper is now published twice a month and very popular with readers all over the entire state of New York. And with the NYREJ.com website the paper is read internationally. I was very fortunate to meet some heavy hitters in New York who became tremendous NYREJ supporters. I will mention just two of them because if I mention them all it would fill too much space. So Faith, don't get upset when your name is not included. OK? First - Barry Horowitz (of Cooper-Horowitz Inc.). I phoned Mr. Horowitz back in the NEREJ's early days (and in those days very few people came to the phone when I called) and when he surprisingly immediately answered, the first question I politely asked him was why he had come to the phone for someone that he didn't know. His answer (and it taught me to never ever screen a call) was that he always answered because he never knew when it might be business. And, by the way, he became one of my most loyal customers, and still is. Thank you Barry. The other most memorable star would definitely be voted the number one commercial real estate broker in the country (if they had Academy Awards). Julien J. Studley. Back in the early sixties Mr. Studley had opened a small office in Boston and hired a young broker named Stephen Davis to run it. In late 1963, broke and ready to close the doors, I was honored to have breakfast with Mr. Studley and asked him if he would like to invest in the then dying New England Real Estate Journal. He said he would get back to me, and to my surprise, he did a week later saying "Yes." His yes gave me the confidence to say thank you, but no thank you, and the rest is history. But now I thank Mr. Studley again for his willingness to help me when I needed it the most. Getting back to the now 25 year old NYREJ, I am fortunate to currently have at the helm the driving force and probably one the most successful and diligent publishers in the country - Kristine Wolf. If we did her biography we would see that her first newspaper job was 21 years ago with the NEREJ. Four years later she moved on to the Boston Business Journal and then Lawyers Weekly, both very successful and respected newspapers. I always hoped Kristine would return to her roots, and I think she knew that because 10 years ago she came home and has been earning an A+ in overseeing the NYREJ paper ever since. The NYREJ sales staff consists of president John Picard (9 years); publisher Jeff Wallace (13 years); and publisher Maxine Ramos (2 years); publisher Joanne Connolly (14 years); publisher Jeff Keller (16 years) along with Dave Denelle, GM (25 years); Mary Pat Baldner, subscriptions (20 years); Karen Rollins, circulation (15 years); Elaine Comras, collections (21 years); Tuyen Pham, billing (12 years); David Sullivan, CFO (12 years); Kristin Robinson, editor (10 years); Rachel Rugman, editor (2 years); Jeanne Hardman, art director (25 years); Cindy Swider, artist (25 years) and Kathi Ferry, art specialist (10 years). We also have a fantastic tech/social media department that includes Eric Wilson, social media/NYREJRadio co-host (3 years); Rick Kaplan, NYREJRadio host (2 years) and Nicole Fowler, team coordinator (2 years), Corey Woods, IT director (1 year) and video editor Matt Miller. The team has been managing the 17 year old NYREJ.com website, along with the company's social media, NYREJRadio show and the new YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/NEREJOURNAL. Roland Hopkins is founder of the NYREJ, Norwell, Mass.