It All Started With a Box of Legal Pads

Employee Spotlight Profile

Lori Rentz, Senior Marketing Manager, Gardner Business Media Inc.

When I was little, probably around six or seven, I got THE BEST birthday present a girl could ask for. It was a huge box filled with magical office supplies like legal pads, paper clips and ink pens. That was also the birthday I got my very own princess phone. For those of you who have no idea what a princess phone is, think fancy cream and gold plastic with an ornate rotary dial (and if you have to research THAT, I give up!). I immediately set up my “office” and became a big business owner in my little bedroom. I didn’t actually DO any business, but I sure spent many joyful hours pretending to over the course of the next few years.

From the day I figured out that letters turned into words and words turned into stories, I was hooked. I loved to read and write. I tolerated math, science and history, but it was English class, with all that rich storytelling and make believe, that truly captured my heart. The more I read, the better and stronger the writer I became. During the latter part of my high school years, as I began to think about what I wanted to be when I grew up, it became increasingly obvious that I would simply wither away unless I became a world-renowned fiction author. But, as an active member of the Future Business Leaders of America club, I was also a blossoming business nerd being tugged in that direction. I needed to find a career that married my love of reading and writing to the business world.

I grew up in the smallish town of Jamestown, NY, about an hour south of Buffalo and an hour north of nowhere. A representative from Wittenberg University, located in Springfield, OH (just about six hours from my home and family) came to my high school for a college fair. On a whim, I stopped to talk to her and went home with stars in my eyes and a glossy brochure full of pictures of who I wanted to become, at the ideal place in which I wanted to transform. I visited (the buildings are so picturesque and the campus is quaint). I applied (look at all my amazing high school achievements and what an asset I’ll be). I was accepted (was there ever any doubt?). I packed up my battered old Ford Escort hatchback and sped off down the road at the tender age of 18, knowing everything as 18-year-olds are wont to do, with hardly a backwards glance. I was on my way to become the world-renowned author/business titan I was born to be.

I never went home again. Because of a job move for my dad, my parents relocated from Jamestown, NY to the true middle of not-much-going-on PA at the start of my sophomore year at Wittenberg. Going “home” wasn’t really going home anymore. Sure, I visited my folks during breaks but as the years went on, I started working and interning at school over summers, and staying more and more in OH until it became my new home. School-wise, when it was time to declare and because of my eternal devotion to reading/writing and the discipline of business, I became a biology major. I’m joking. I quickly, and effortlessly, became a business major with a focus in marketing and a minor in English literature. Was I in heaven on Earth? You bet I was. And I spent the next four glorious years at that little liberal arts school soaking up the education, people and experiences as much as I could. (How many of us wish we could go back to college for just a couple of days, knowing then what we know now? Time travel cannot happen soon enough.)

By the time I graduated with my BA, I’d realized that the next great American novelist, I was NOT. I didn’t enjoy writing fiction as much as I enjoyed gorging on reading it. In fact, writing this article is the most I’ve written about anything not associated with a commercial product or service since 1997. Sometimes I’ll start to journal about my life or put down on paper (computer) the start of a story idea. But inevitably within minutes, I’ve bored myself to tears or am so critical of every word I write that the experience becomes miserable. So, with my new marketing and business degree in my hot little paws, I took a job doing what you’d naturally expect: temporary employment services sales. I wish I were joking like I was about the biology major, but that is actually what I did. My fresh-faced 21-year-old self accepted a position where every day, I got into my battered old Ford and cold called on manufacturing facilities and offices in the greater Dayton, OH area. I dropped off brochures to receptionists behind sliding glass partitions, peddling our ability to provide temporary workers to their business. Let’s just say that this position was not ideal for me, and within a year, I’d left it and Dayton to return to the Springfield, OH area. I rejoined the gourmet foods and farm business where I’d been a marketing intern during my senior year and settled into a much more suitable full-time role assisting the marketing director with developing projects such as product brochures, press releases and sales collateral featuring delicious raspberry-based foods.

Then I met a guy. And I fell in love. And I soon moved from Springfield to Cincinnati, OH, to be with him and where, unbeknownst to me at that time, I’d end up spending the next 25 years (and counting). It’s also where I’d get my marketing sea legs under me and embark on what I consider to be a very rewarding career in corporate marketing. My first “big girl” job in Cincinnati was with a family-owned trade magazine publishing and media company downtown. That company’s focus was on visual communications with interests in industries including large format printing, sign making and screen printing. I spent eight years with them, working my way up through various roles with increasing responsibilities and learning the ropes of corporate b2b marketing. But what I remember most fondly and maybe more importantly, are the lovely souls with whom I’m still best friends all these years later.

I married that guy and we had two beautiful sons together. Our oldest was born with a bunch of unrelated birth defects which made the first 18 months of his life terrifying. I honestly don’t remember a lot of specifics during those foggy, sleepless times except that we spent too many days in and out of doctors’ offices and at the unparalleled Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Andrew received the very best care we could find, outgrew or adapted to some of the birth defects and we continued to live our lives as normally as possible. It turns out he’s simply wonderful and just happens to be on a unique path of his own, living with an intellectual disability that today remains undiagnosed, but doesn’t slow him down too much. Now, at almost 20 years of age, he just finished his freshman year at the University of Cincinnati, has a part-time job this summer washing dishes at a pizza joint around the corner and gets together with his buddies every Saturday night to play video games.

My second son Nathaniel came along when Andy was two. He burst into the world yelling and creating a fuss and continues to have that special kind of energy even now as he approaches 18. Nate is my outgoing, spirited, funny, smart, courageous, kind, loving son who makes me swell with pride and shake with fury, sometimes in the same moment. Thankfully, he was not born with any of the challenges Andy has and has always quietly taken on the role of big brother, even though he’s two years younger. Nate has decided to speed off down a road of his own this fall, moving into a whole different time zone from us, and will start his freshman year at the Colorado State University. People tell me I’ve done a good job raising him to be independent and self-assured enough to set out so far on his own. I’m glad for that, but I’m also at a strange crossroads of going from full-time mom to part-time consultant. But that’s another article for another day.

When Nate was a toddler, I left the publishing and media company to strike out on my own. I needed the flexibility of owning my own business to better balance the needs of my young family. I completed a rigorous training course and became a certified Virtual Assistant with a focus on providing micro businesses and entrepreneurs with marketing support. This was a very cool remote business model before working remote was a thing! And I loved it. I had clients all over the country who ranged from independent sales consultants to software startup professionals to career and life coaches. I developed their press packages and marketing materials, arranged speaking engagements and more, all from the comfort of my home office. This lasted for a little less than two years and then my life’s timeline zigged when it should have zagged. In the space of a few months, in the midst of raising two active little boys (one with significant special needs) and building my own business from the ground up, my mother died unexpectedly and my marriage ended. It feels odd to only devote eight words to the two biggest events of my life that changed everything, but in the interest of your time, dear reader, I’ll move on.

To support myself and my two little guys, who were three and five at the time, I needed a steady paycheck and health insurance so I moved back into the world of corporate marketing! I found a job as a marketing manager with an international sports flooring manufacturer headquartered in Cincinnati near Lunken Airport. I developed a new set of marketing skills by working with their distributor network and getting exposure to foreign business markets. Unfortunately, this was right around 2008 when the economy wasn’t doing so swell, and people were not investing in new gymnasium floors. The company issued a series of unpaid furloughs and although I enjoyed the role and the people I worked with, financially I had to move on.

The next ten years of my life and career grew me the most significantly (so far). Personally, I recovered from my divorce, met and took the marriage plunge a second time with Paul, who is now my best friend and husband. Professionally, I joined the team at Executive Jet Management as a marketing projects manager and grew into their director of marketing and communications by the time we parted ways. EJM, located on the field at Lunken Airport, is a subsidiary of NetJets Inc, a Berkshire Hathaway company, and provides private/corporate aircraft management and charter services. I spent a full and rewarding decade involved in hundreds of marketing and communications projects and programs ranging from the typical marketing activities to helping redesign the building to a rebranding effort and then some. Some days I’d be writing copy for a new brochure or webpage and picking out carpet for the lobby. Other days I’d be working with our team in China on a brand-new product launch and finishing up by planning a three-day meeting for our pilots and maintenance technicians. On yet other days, I’d be schlepping tables together in the training room to help host a company-wide town hall meeting and luncheon. The point here is that I consider my tenure with EJM to have given me a substantial well of marketing, executive, communications and general business acumen, both wide and deep. I believe those years and those experiences placed me in the perfect position, at the perfect time, to join another tremendous team and company. (Any guesses who and what I’m referring to here?)

But first . . . I was part of an 85-person reduction in force at EJM at the early onset of the COVID pandemic. People were simply not flying, anywhere, at any time, even privately, and the business took a major financial hit almost overnight. The NetJets marketing team took over the EJM marketing responsibilities and I was politely returned to the wild with 84 of my colleagues, after having just celebrated my ten-year anniversary with the company. I then took a short-term remote role with a Canadian procurement software start-up to help them establish new branding and marketing content. Meanwhile, I searched for my next long-term career move. And found it.

I’ve known about Gardner Business Media since my days at that other family-owned publishing and media company. But our two worlds never really crossed and I wasn’t in Gardner’s orbit until I responded to an online listing for their “Audience Director.” The last I’d been involved in publishing, it was called Circulation, so I didn’t really put two and two together to know that this kind of Audience was about the readers, not about marketing. I gamely sent along my resume, was chosen for an interview anyway, and met with Heather Francis and Jeff Norgord on St. Patrick’s Day in 2021, over Grouper Reubens at a local Newtown restaurant. After an easy hour of learning and listening to what GBM had to offer, it was “love at first sight,” at least for me. I had a second meeting online a few days later, met more of the leadership team and became even more excited for and enthralled with the opportunity to be a part of this team, at this time. It felt more than just okay, it felt right . . . it felt perfect. I happily accepted the offer to join Jeff’s and Gardner’s team and started my first day in April 2021.

For the past two years, I’ve done my best to make good, solid contributions to the company’s goals and add positivity to the superb work of all the smart, feisty individuals who make Gardner Business Media the success it is. I have the joy and true pleasure of writing copy again, introducing processes and creating unique content. I’m valued for the work I do, the fun I help organize and the leadership (I hope) I provide. I look forward to coming into the office every day and spending my time with these professionals I admire and respect so very much, still discovering and still growing. I’ve learned that we laugh together, we cry together and sometimes we even fight together. But I’ve also learned that at the end of every day, we are together, and that’s what matters.

Will I ever be that world-renowned author I thought I’d be when I was a teen? Not likely, and that’s just fine. I don’t think I could be happier than I am today with the work I do and the people with whom I do it. And although I’ve traded my pretty little princess phone for a sleek new modern model (that I’m not quite sure how to use!), I still have all the legal pads, paper clips and ink pens I could ever hope for. My marketing career and heart are equally full.
 

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Lori Rentz, Senior Marketing Manager
Gardner Business Media Inc.
513-527-8941
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About the Author

Lori Rentz

Lori is the senior marketing manager at Gardner Business Media with more than 25 years of experience helping corporate organizations across multiple industries tell their stories and build their brands. By focusing on marketing and communications, Lori has been able to put her BA in Business with a Marketing specialization from Wittenberg University to good use. Over the years, her strengths in copy writing, project management and relationship building have garnered some recognition for leading successful marketing teams, implementing sustainable marketing processes and creating targeted libraries of promotional collateral. When not at Gardner Business Media, Lori is an avid reader and number one fan of both her college-age sons. She loves spending time exploring the Cincinnati restaurant scene with her husband, Paul, and discovering all the good red wines on the shelves for $15/bottle or less.