1st Issue Cover

February 2010 marks our 19th anniversary of publishing our magazine in the Hampton Roads market. We not only have published 63 editions focused on the Peninsula and 17 editions focused on the Southside market, but also have surpassed the major milestone of publishing over one and a quarter million magazines - 1,340,000 magazines to be exact.

The key to our success over the past 19 years of publishing has been the development of long-standing relationships with our advertisers. The magazine is simply about good people and good businesses who make a difference each day. Keep this in mind as you read through this website and our online edition. It takes the efforts of more than 75 people to bring each issue to you. Throughout you will notice photos of most of them, and it is our hope that over time you will get a feeling of comfort, trust and friendship with each of them.

As a special tribute to all those who have helped us reach this major milestone, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you a condensed version of the history of our magazine company.

In the Fall of 1988, Wayne Block, Sports Information Director for CNU, and I were working together to produce small projects, from promotional pieces for businesses to in-room hotel directories. One day in Wayne’s office, I noticed a small weekly magazine on his desk called “This Week in High Point” (NC). I said to him half-jokingly that the Peninsula needed a magazine and that we should do it. Soon we were researching the market and spreading the word that we were starting our own “This Month on the Peninsula”. I convinced my brother Paul, from New Jersey, to move to Newport News to help sell advertising. Still to this day, that was probably one of my greatest sales pitches, since we had no prototype or sales material and only $1,000 in start up capital to begin this project.

In February 1991, Paul and I began cold-call selling throughout the Peninsula, trying to create advertiser support. We signed our first agreement in May with Captain Mike from the Miss Hampton II harbor cruises. We still have a great relationship with him and will always feel indebted to him for his trust and belief in what the magazine would become.

Another life-changing event happened May of 1991. Since Paul was new to the area, I brought him to Downtown Hampton to a Friday after-work party at Mill Point to meet people. As it turned out, I was the one to meet someone new that night. I was introduced to Heidi Cook, who five years later became my wife, my partner in business, my partner as editor and co-owner and my partner in life. Without her support during the very difficult early years of the business, there would be no reason to celebrate the success of the magazine.

Within the next year-and-a-half, several dozen advertisers signed on to try the magazine. Four of those still do business with us to this day: the Virginia Living Museum, the Radisson Hotel (now Crowne Plaza), the Virginia Air and Space Center and Old Point National Bank.

In July 1994, the business was just a few years old and barely surviving. Several changes were proposed to try to make it more profitable. Most of them involved further investment, and Wayne and his wife Linda had decided that they couldn’t put any more money into the business. Heidi and I offered them a buy-out. After hearing our business plan, Mr. George Wallace, Mr. Ben Williams and several other members of the IDA committee offered us a SBA loan through the Economic Development Authority of Hampton. We paid a deposit on the business to the Blocks, bought an Apple computer, and made several major changes to the way we did business.

The biggest change was investing money into the distribution structure and the design and layout of the magazine. The new target group of readers became locals and business owners through direct mail. The other major change was the establishment of a new look for the logo and a name change to “Peninsula” magazine.

Over the next eight years, “Peninsula” magazine built a team of loyal and committed staff, along with a solid base of long-term advertisers and a readership that looked forward to each new issue.

In May 2002, we unveiled our first issue of “Southside” magazine, a sister publication designed to offer the readers of the Southside their own positive, professional magazine that those on the Peninsula had come to love.

In the summer of 2006 we completed the process of changing the name and logo of the magazine to “Executive Lifestyle Magazine” to better reflect our target market, distribution, and mission. To us, Executive Lifestyle means a “balanced life” where we promote the proper balance between work responsibilities and family priorities. Executive level professionals are often caught in a constant struggle to manage the needs of their work, family, and life. Our desire is to encourage our readers to pursue “Success with No Regrets”™.

Although we have had a PDF version available on our website for several years, the fall of 2009 marks another milestone moment in the growth of our company. It was then that we first introduced our completely integrated online version of the magazine that serves to compliment our two print editions. You can go directly to that from within this website or by going to www.ExecLifeMag.com

1st Southside Issue Cover

In terms of our readers, our goal with each issue is to inform, educate and entertain them. We hope to get them to smile, to make more informed decisions, to learn something new, to discover our local history, to be knowledgeable about our local economy, and to do business with quality companies.

The best way to understand our corporate vision is the read the following statements below:

• Our purpose is to promote the concept of balance between business and personal life.

• Our vision is to develop a multi-faceted marketing platform promoting successful Executive interaction.

• Our mission is to amass a family of Professional advertisers and a loyal audience.

• Our core value is to conduct business using the highest degree of ethical, moral and Christian beliefs.

•Our strategy is to maintain a high degree of quality within our media culture by pre-qualifying our advertisers and selectively targeting our readership to achieve the highest level of synergy possible.

Each quarter, we publish a Peninsula and Southside edition of our “Executive Lifestyle Magazine”. These are distributed by direct mail to over 30,000 business leaders in Hampton Roads and also to all the homes in 21 upscale golf course and waterfront communities. This makes our annual readership of both magazines combined well over 340,000 readers.

There is a special group of advertisers who have helped make our success a reality. To demonstrate our thanks to these advertisers we have created the Peninsula/Southside Magazine Hall of Fame. Please take a moment to click on the link that pays tribute to this special group for it is they who enable you to enjoy this issue. The logos in the scroll are linked to each of the advertiser’s websites if you would like to learn more about them.

Thank you for reading about our history and future vision.
Try to make every day the best day of your life. Share your smile, and say the positive things that we often tend to put off until another day. I hope you feel as good reading the magazine as we feel about bringing it to you.