Keeping up with the Jones: A new tag-team partner

I don’t know if this is as big as when Hulk Hogan and Randy “Macho Man” Savage joined forces in 1987 on Saturday Night’s Main Event, to create the Mega Powers, but to me, it sort of feels that way.

Scott Hollister (left) and Seth Jones. (Photo: Golfdom staff)

As you might know, for the last 13 years I’ve been Editor-in-Chief of Golfdom, a position I’ve embraced and enjoyed immensely. But what you might not know is that, over the last five years, I’ve served a dual role at North Coast Media (NCM), Golfdom’s parent company. I’ve also worked as the Editor-in-Chief of our sister publication, Landscape Management (LM).

LM covers the lawn care and landscape industry. It’s a big market with a big audience — 60,000-plus print copies a month (for comparison, Golfdom prints 20,000-plus copies a month). It was a great promotion and opportunity for your pal Seth, and it also allowed me to meet some really fascinating people and travel the world — Puerto Rico and Italy among other stops for that magazine.

But over the last six months, we’ve had some staff turnover, as happens in any industry. I knew I needed to hire one, maybe two people to help me and my team with the controlled chaos of publishing two monthly magazines. After rifling through the résumés handed to me by my human resources director, I asked myself, is the answer in here? I sat at my desk and wondered if there was someone who could come in and really make an impact on day one.

That’s when I thought of my old co-worker and friend, Scott Hollister. Scott and I were co-workers at GCSAA, on Golf Course Management, from 1999 until I left to take over Golfdom in 2012. We’ve remained close over the years, attending the same industry events, the occasional concert and ballgame and even being in the same fantasy basketball league over the years, arguing over pro basketball players.

So, by now, you know where this is going. I invited Scott to lunch just to ask him if he might consider an opportunity I had at NCM. After a few lunches, phone calls, cold Miller Lites and much consideration from Scott … we had our guy. Scott accepted the position of Editor-in-Chief of Landscape Management (I’ll remain on the LM team as Editorial Director.)

Even though Scott will be serving LM full-time, it would be foolish for us not to utilize his experience, skills and network on the golf side. After all, he did spend 26 years working at GCSAA.

When the sad news broke that Dr. Joe Vargas passed away, I asked Scott if he could write a story for Golfdom, which he was happy to do. After so many years of knowing Scott as Mr. GCM, seeing his byline in this issue of Golfdom is somewhat surreal, but it’s also so very, very welcomed. I know Scott is going to make my life easier and he is also going to make our brands so much stronger.

I also want to shout out the team who have kept the magazines and the websites on track these past few months while we were shorthanded, especially Rob DiFranco, managing editor, Pete Seltzer, art director, Sydney Fischer, digital media specialist, Joey Ciccolini, digital media content producer, Bill Roddy, group publisher and Craig MacGregor, publisher.

With the addition of The Hulkster — I mean, Hollister — it’s the start of something new here at NCM. I don’t know which of us is Hogan and which of us is Savage, but I am grateful to have a new tag team partner to make these magazines … ooooh, yeah!