wnc woman's godfather: steve koletnik
by julie savage parker and sandi tomlin-sutker

We walked into Steve Koletnik's office at the Asheville Citizen-Times last summer wide-eyed and wet behind the ears.

We were researching who we wanted to print WNC WOMAN. What Sandi and I knew about publishing a magazine that day could fit on a 3x5 card. As it turned out, our naïveté was very much to our advantage, because we didn't know you couldn't take a magazine from concept to production in four months. So we did.

We are grateful to this 'veteran print guru' (as Kate Reynolds called him in The Matrix Revisited last month) both for what he did tell us, and for what he didn't. Indeed, Steve Koletnik immediately recognized our passion for this project, appreciated our strengths and didn't seem to notice our weaknesses. At ACT for 15 years and in the print business twice that long, he has helped birth more than 20 publications over the years—ours one of two this last year.

The first and most obvious piece of advice he gave us was to spring for the better paper...a brighter, whiter newsprint that melts in your mind, not on your hands! Our focus groups have confirmed this was a wise move. His guidance on circulation, distribution, advertising, use of color—all of it well-advised. His excitement with the advent of each new issue is palpable. His patience with wiggly deadlines, much appreciated. I even got to shout "Stop the presses!" one time when I found a rather serious error (of mine) and they did so—graciously—and came up with a creative solution. Which reminds us, we appreciate the skill and care of the entire crew who have been responsible for getting the magazine from our heads to your hands each month: shift managers Shawn Demick & John Barnwell and pressmen Jeff Harrop, Tim Masters & David Watts.

Each time we invite someone new to join us at presstime, she is welcomed by Steve and shown the ropes. DeAnne Hampton, one of our writers and the 'muscles' in our organization, joined us on press day for the July issue. (DeAnne loads 12,000 40-page magazines at ACT's printing facility in south Asheville and delivers them to our 'distribution headquarters' downtown each month!)

Probably the most important thing Steve Koletnik gave us, right from the beginning, was his conviction that our idea was worth doing. And more than that, really needed. And as we’ve gone through these past ten months, Steve’s faith in us and the magazine we are creating each month has buoyed us in the face of our own moments of overwhelm and trepidation. When we relate comments to him such as “They say they’re reading it cover to cover!” Steve just gives us his quiet smile and a knowing “Didn’t I tell you?” nod.