In 1990 it dawned on me that I could take what I’d learned during years as a news reporter and editor and bring it to companies and trade associations so they could have good publications like The Rhode Island Builder Report and The Primer. Nobody else was doing that.

When I first got going, I was working out of an old chicken coop (no kidding) at our place in the woods of Cumberland, R.I. just using my own name. In 1993, my wife, Jackie, and I worked up a hare-brained deal with the church whose land we abutted: We would swap our property for an equal amount of land they owned across the Blackstone River in the Town of Lincoln. We’d build a house there and I could build up my editorial enterprise.

Meanwhile, my mother asked: "Why don’t you name your company?"

I’m a great believer in names taken from locations: I think companies should be proud of where they are. Well, our new digs were supposed to be built on Old River Road. Old River Press? Sounded like I was publishing books on antiques. The new property was next to the church cemetery. Except for the fact that I write books about New England ghosts, no ideas there. BUT, the road down the hill from the property was New River Road.

AH HAAAAA!

I even used the magnificent old oak tree on the property as the company logo.

Then all of a sudden an engineer told us it was the worst homesite he ever saw. So the whole deal fell through and we moved up the river to Woonsocket instead.

Over the years, New River Press has truly become a family enterprise, with several cousins with journalism or marketing backgrounds joining the team, and my wife and two sons handling  day-to-day operations. We still produce newsletters and offer editorial services, but commercial book publishing is rapidly becoming our "bread and butter."

Despite the changes over the years, however, the "New River" name has always stuck, and so has the tree!