Elwood Edwards died last week. Can’t place the name? Chances are you’ve heard him speak. Edwards, an employee at TV station WKYC in Ohio, was the voice of AOL, declaring for millions of us, “You’ve got mail!” Ben Baldanza also died last week.
Who? If you’ve ever flown on Spirit, you’re familiar with the airline that Baldanza turned into a profitable powerhouse in 2005 with low prices, bare-bones service and bold marketing gimmicks. And Mike Shatzkin died last week. The name might not ring a bell.
But if you’ve bought a book — almost any book — in the last few decades, chances are you benefited from the procedures and strategies he developed as a publishing guru. We lose roughly 57,000 people in the U.S.
each week, most of whom never get a mention in the newspaper. In journalistic terms, that makes them “ordinary Americans.” But I’m going to share a bit about Mike Shatzkin, my close friend, because as accomplished as he was in his chosen field, in his robust personal life he was extraordinary.
More than anyone I’ve known, Mike saw people for what they were and always managed to find something good. As a result, everyone liked him. What a marvelous prescription for a successful life! When we were kids, he wasn’t much of an athlete, but the jocks in our school admired him.
He didn’t drive fast or talk tough, but the guys who did respected him. There were better looking classmates, but many young women were drawn to him. How was this possible? Mike.