Bit bucket ...

Thirty: At the New York Times, when they needed to make an Atex format work, they turned to Joe Ledford, who worked in the newsroom technology office. Formerly with USA Today, Ledford was known throughout the industry as a format wizard, making Atex systems "sit up and do things that people thought they couldn't do," according to Rich Meislin, Ledford's boss. Meislin was sad to report that Ledford died May 25 at age 42. ...

Awards: Behind-the-scene types usually don't win awards, but there have been a passel recently that should be noted. ... At the Hearst Corp., the Eagle Award (for outstanding efforts) has been given to Waldo Esperat, system manager of the Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise; Katie Harrison, office and systems manager of Hearst Newspapers' Washington, D.C. bureau; Charlie Hug, advertising systems manager at the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union; Justin Makler, system manager at the Edwardsville (Ill.) Intelligencer, and Gene Mills, information systems manager at the Midland (Texas) Reporter-Telegram. ... At Phoenix Newspapers Inc., Dave Seibert of editorial systems has won the papers' Silver Ingot Award. ... At the Seattle Times, Stanley Farrar, assistant managing editor for graphics, has won the paper's Publisher's Circle Award. ...

Real bits: At the Hartford (Conn.) Courant, Mark Kurtich has been named veep of circulation and customer service (he'd been veep of operations and customer support); Matt Poland has been named veep of operations (he'd been production director); Paul Reynolds has been named production director (he'd been director of facilities and engineering). ... Mona Hatfield has been named news research manager for Lesher Communications Inc. (Contra Costa Times, etc.) in Walnut Creek, Calif.; she'd been library director at The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La. ... At the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, Patricia Hart has been named editor of the paper's new on-line service; she'd been executive entertainment editor of the paper. ... The new director of technology at the Scitex Graphic Arts Users Association (SGAUA) is Gregory Dean; he'd been with a variety of pre-press shops previously. ...

Vendor vicissitudes: At Advanced Technical Solutions Inc. of North Andover, Mass., Bill Pate has been named to the R&D team developing Osiris Ad-Visor; Pate most recently was with DuPont Newspaper Systems working on the Whirlwind classified system. ... At Gannett Media Technologies International of Cincinnati, Bill Toner has been named vice president/operations; he'd been director of the Gannett Newspaper Division's Advanced Systems Lab in Arlington, Va. Also at Gmti, Duane Hughes has been named operations director; he'd been business systems operations manager at the Cincinnati Enquirer. Further Gmti hiring includes Mick Kowitz as senior programmer; he'd been with Software Consulting Services of Nazareth, Pa. And Carol Toner, who has been with Gmti since its start-up last September, has been made East Coast account manager (in previous lives, Toner had been with Harris and Atex). ... At Iris Graphics Inc. of Bedford, Mass., Bernard Segaloff has been named president and CEO; he's been with the company since 1988. Also at Iris, Peter Wood has been named veep of R&D; since 1992, he has run his own business (Vital Imaging Systems Inc.) but before that he put in 15 years with Crosfield Electronics and six years with Kodak and Atex. ... At System Integrators Inc. of Sacramento, Ken Schurr has retired after 14 years with the company (and a distinguished career at Atex, IBM and the Miami Herald before that). Most recently, Schurr was national accounts manager for the company. ... At TV Data Technologies of Queensbury, N.Y., John Dodds has been named director of newspaper sales and interactive services; Dodds, a 13-year TV Data veteran, has been regional sales director. ...

Confabs: The Interactive Newspapers Europe meeting will be July 6-7 in London; it's sponsored by the Hammond Organisation. Speakers include Terry Schwadron of the Los Angeles Times and Ray Douglas of the New York Times. Interact with the organizers by calling {011} (44 181) 943-9700 or sending e-mail to news@hammconf.demon.co.uk. ... The Quark XPress Users International will hold its annual conference and seminars July 11-12 in Washington, D.C. Sessions include a preview of XPress 4.0, scripting, hot XTensions and "Tips 'n' Tricks." Express your desire for more information by calling (603) 430-8910. ... For Macintosh networking geeks, there's Mactivity '95, July 11-13 in San Jose; a side conference, Mactivity/Web, will be held concurrently to talk about using Macintoshes for World-Wide Web servers (like ours at http://colegroup.com). Speakers at Mactivity/Web include Chuck Shotton, the author of Machttp/Webstar. Network yourself in to Mactivity at (408) 354-2500 or e-mail to info@mactivity.com. ... Spotlight, the interactive media conference, will be July 23-25 in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Executive producer is Denise Caruso, founding editor of Digital Media and Technology & Media newsletters and now a columnist for the New York Times. To turn the spotlight on Spotlight, dial (800) 633-4312. ... And if you can't get to Washington to talk Quark, maybe the Quark XPress Users International Western Regional Seminar is for you: It's July 27 in Los Angeles. Call the same number, (603) 430-8910, for details. ...

"I saw a lot of bad demos, but [name deleted] is the only one I really threw up on."

-- A metro newspaper systems director, NEXPO '94

From THE COLE PAPERS, July 1995, Copyright (c) 1995, All Rights Reserved.