Harry H. Bliss This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Inland | Newspaper Reporting

   www.inlandpress.org/about/blis - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/11/2000   Last Visited: 8/14/2000

   Bliss, the 2000 Inland Press Association president and president of Bliss Communications, Janesville, Wis., felt a bit intimidated by the knowledge of the senior people in the industry years ago. But he found, through Inland, that these people were a network of professionals that welcomed him warmly and shared their wisdom.
   
   Inland is where my peers hang out. To have an opportunity to tap those relationships, ask questions and find creative ways of solving problems is what makes Inland unique, he said. I want to give some of that back..
   
   Bliss reaches the pinnacle of his Inland activity this year as he serves as Inland's president in the association's 115th year.
   
   Continue innovation
   
   Bliss hopes to continue the steady growth in both membership and participation that Inland has experienced over the past several years.
   
   One key to that growth, he said, is that Inland provides programming not available anywhere else in the industry, such as the pressroom and mailroom management workshops, the Special Sections and Group Executives conferences, and Sales Compensation workshops, among others. He said the association must continue to be innovative in developing cost-effective programs for an evolving industry.
   
   We need to bring forward new programs that train people so we have a workforce prepared to take advantage of all the new media opportunities that abound, he said.
   
   Participants can expect a continued empahsis on regional programs, Bliss said. As the association's membership has spread geographically, Inland has taken more of its programs beyond the Midwest and sponsored two or more regional versions of popular programs such as the sales and circulation academies and newsroom workshops.
   
   Inland programming will also address two industry topics Bliss feels will be important this year : growing paid circulation and exploring Internet opportunities. Business, family balance.
   
   The Bliss family has had a long association with Inland.
   ...
   Bliss' grandfather, Harry H. Bliss, served as Inland president in 1913.
   
   The family has held on to the Gazette for 117 years. Skip Bliss is the fourth generation to lead the newspaper.
   
   Bliss worked summers at the newspaper as a teen-ager and through college, getting grassroots experience in circulation and advertising. After graduation from Milton College, Bliss spent four years in sales with WBKV-AM and FM in West Bend, Wis., before coming to work at the Gazette. He managed the retail advertising department, was promoted to assistant general manager, then general manager, and in 1989 became publisher and president of the company.
   
   Marshall Johnston, current chairman of Bliss Communications, acted as a mentor to Bliss.
   ...
   Bliss learned to make business decisions first. At the newspaper, family came second.
   
   Bliss wanted to share the successful business first philosophy with other family owned newspapers. The composition of the industry changed in the mid-1980s as public companies began buying struggling, independently owned newspapers burdened by a lack of business savvy and heavy inheritance taxes.
   
   When Bliss filled in as a speaker on family ownership issues at a New England Newspaper Association conference, he discovered how much need existed for information on issues surrounding family and independent ownership. So he helped develop Inland's Family Owners Conference and Family Owners Committee.
   
   People needed help. They needed to understand the importance of running a newspaper like a good business, he said. The same kind of need for help drove the development of the InfiNet Classified SuperSearch online classified database package for Inland members. Bliss spearheaded this initiative in 1996 as chairman of the Online Classified Committee that screened potential online classified providers for Inland members.
   
   In October, when Bliss hands over the gavel to President-Elect Jim Clifford of the Watertown (Wis.) Daily Times, he will have served on the Inland board and executive committee for eight years. He intends to remain active-"I want to be another Byron Vedder, he said, referring to the 1954 Inland president who has been a regular attendee of Inland events for decades.
   
   For me, the real value in Inland is in its ability to build relationships with people I respect in the industry, he said. i have found that Inland, more than any other industry association, offers me the ability to do that..