6 School Transportation News Magazine September 2011 Looking Back, continued from cover


Having come out of television news and broadcast journalism, where immediacy of news reporting was our currency, this pace wasn’t news reporting to me — it was an exercise in historical writing. Tat was very frustrating to a news junkie like me.


STN: But as an executive with SBF — and


certainly you were an executive as the editor/ publisher — you were about to go into competition with your employer. How did you do that? Paul: I consulted with a lawyer who specialized


in executives going into business to compete with their former employer. He advised me as to what I could and could not do, and I followed his advice. One of the key tips he gave me is that courts did not require the entrepreneur to expunge his or her memory, meaning the personal relationships I’d developed with operators and advertisers was an asset. But I wasn’t allowed to take my personal phone book, any lists, business cards or other contact information I’d accumulated. All that belonged to my former employer, and I left it all behind.


STN: Was there an “aha” moment when you


said to yourself, “Yes, this is a go”? Paul: Yes, there was. It occurred when a


designer I’d hired translated my vision for a new tabloid-size magazine into a sample copy. When I held my “new baby” in my hands, from that


moment on I knew exactly what I wanted to create and had a clear vision of how to proceed.


STN: How did you introduce the new


magazine to the industry? You certainly couldn’t advertise in the competitor’s magazine. Paul: Timing is everything. I resigned my position


with SBF a few weeks before the Southeastern [Pupil


Transportation] Conference meeting


in Drawbridge, Ky., in 1991. Ten I attended the meeting on my own, not representing SBF. Fortunately for me, I knew almost all of the


❝ STN: So what was it like publishing the first


few issues? SBF was certainly the dominant player in the field at the time. Paul: Yes, it was. Well, the first issue was


prepared using hot type. That’s an old technology that no longer exists. We worked with a local company that


typeset each


article, and then we had to lay out each article and each page by hand. It was very slow and laborious. And because we were a startup with very little money — I basically tapped all my retirement savings to launch


When I held my ‘new baby’ in my hands, from that moment


on I knew exactly what I wanted to create and had a clear vision of how to proceed. ❞ — Bill Paul, Founder & Editor Emeritus of School Transportation News


advertisers and many of the operators in the public school and private contractor sides of the industry. Jerry Williams, then president and CEO of AmTran (later IC Bus), took the occasion to introduce me to the assembled conference declaring, “Bill has an important announcement to make.” I told conferees that I was no longer with SBF, showed them my sample copies and said I was launching a new publication in the fall. From that point on, I was off and running.


the venture — we published the first issue on uncoated newspaper stock. In fact, that was the idea, to look like an industry newspaper to distinguish ourselves from School Bus Fleet. I ran the magazine out of my home for the first several months. My wife, Colette, pitched in everywhere she was needed and gradually learned the publishing business. Our business model was based on advertiser support plus paid subscriptions.


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