SBD/SBJ Chair Ray Shaw, A Journalist At Heart, Dies At 75

Shaw More Than Doubled ACBJ's Business Titles, Employment

SportsBusiness Daily/SportsBusiness Journal Chair & CEO RAY SHAW died early yesterday morning from complications following a bee sting. He was 75. Shaw also was Chair & CEO of American City Business Journals, parent company of SBD/SBJ and other sports titles, including NASCAR Scene, NASCAR Illustrated, Sporting News, Inside Lacrosse and Hemmings Motor News. ACBJ also publishes 40 local business weeklies, among other properties, and is now part of Advance Publications, the largest privately-held media company in the U.S. Bizjournals is ACBJ's online business-news division. Besides more than doubling ACBJ's business titles and employment, Shaw also diversified the company into automotive and sports publishing. Along with his son and current SBJ/SBD President WHITNEY SHAW, he spearheaded the launch of SBJ in late '97 and introduced its first issue in '98. To complement the print product, Shaw acquired THE DAILY that same year. He was good at understanding what people were passionate about, Whitney Shaw said, and was able to develop products that catered to those passions. "Whether it was sports, or business, or cars, it didn't matter -- he was playing to that enthusiast audience," he said. Shaw was honored recently by the Society of American Business Editors & Writers with its lifetime achievement award. Although much of his career was on the business side of publishing, he remained a journalist at heart.

A LARGE LEGACY: Shaw joined ACBJ in '89 after taking early retirement as President of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal. In his 20 years as Chair & CEO of ACBJ, the company moved its HQs from K.C. to Charlotte, doubled the number of weekly business journals it publishes and expanded into magazines and other media. Along the way, employment grew from about 850 people to more than 1,900. Shaw took early retirement to move to Charlotte, where he planned to join his sons, Whitney and KIRK, in their small publishing company. Shaw was known as a dedicated family man, and in many respects ran ACBJ as an extension of that family. "There's no question that family was primary to him" said Whitney Shaw, Exec VP of ACBJ. "That's the reason he took early retirement (from Dow Jones) so he could come to Charlotte and be with family, and family was the foundation for the kind of company he wanted to build." As CEO, Shaw frequently improved the company's employee benefits, started a scholarship program for children of employees, and took other steps to make ACBJ family-friendly. Shaw's work ethic was legendary, but Whitney Shaw noted, "Most weeks, he was (also) on a sideline somewhere cheering for his grandkids," and he wanted his employees to feel they could do the same with their families, he said. Shaw grew up in El Reno, Oklahoma, where he started his journalism career at the local newspaper. He attended the Univ. of Oklahoma and worked for the Daily Oklahoman and the AP in Oklahoma City while in school. While at the Wall Street Journal, he was a reporter, page-one editor and bureau chief. In addition, he was the founding executive in charge of the AP-Dow Jones international news wire. During his tenure at Dow Jones, the Journal became the largest circulation newspaper in the U.S. and started the Asian Wall Street Journal and Wall Street Journal Europe.

ALWAYS A JOURNALIST: Whitney Shaw said one of the keys to understanding his father was that he was first and foremost a journalist. "He could (succeed) in advertising and circulation, but he never stopped being a journalist, he was always a reporter and editor first." Ray Shaw is survived by his wife KAY, sons Whitney and Kirk and their spouses, his daughter BETH and her husband, and seven grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending (THE DAILY).