I wish I was writing this editorial about the plumbing problems in Texas. Or maybe about some of the latest virtual events I’ve covered. But there are those months when you struggle to find something to write about—and then there are months when there’s only one thing you can write about.
If you’ve already read Matt Michel’s touching tribute in this issue you know Bob Mader, former Editorial Director for CONTRACTOR Magazine, just recently, unexpectedly, passed away. I still don’t have all the details, but I do know he left us far, far too soon.
I met Bob when I started work on CONTRACTOR as a Production Editor back in 1996, which means I’ve known Bob half my life, and almost the entirety of my professional career. He was Managing Editor at the time and had already been working for the magazine since 1984.
Later on our mutual boss, Bob Miodonski, went off to work for the competition and Bob Mader took the top job. It was an uncertain time in the publishing world with the rise of digital media and questions about what kind of resources to devote to the print side of the operation. There was a long stretch there where it felt like it was just Bob, myself, and the art director turning out the magazine month after month.
As a mentor, Bob set very high standards for the work, then got out of the way and let you do the work however you thought best. He led, as the best leaders do, by example.
And what an example! As a writer, editor and journalist he was the consummate professional; always asking the incisive questions, hunting down facts, always laboring for clarity and concision in his prose. He would do interviews with the phone in the crook of his neck, typing the responses directly onto his keyboard. He could look at a page right out of the printer and say, “Hm, looks like the font is a little bit off,” and sure enough, we’d go back, check, and it would be a point or two off. There were a thousand little things like that he’d surprise me with—that just showed he was working on this whole other level.
Bob believed in the value of the skilled trades. He felt the plumbing and heating industry was the vanguard of public health and the glue that held cities together. He was an early proponent of energy- and water-efficient systems. He was early to grasp the significance of prefabrication, of the Smart Buildings/Smart Cities movement, the importance of IoT and Big Data and what they would mean for the future. Bob was always ahead of the curve.
And he was a warm, funny, kind human being. Everybody was always glad to see Bob (and he knew everybody). You could see it when he was walking the floor at AHR or any of the big shows. It sometimes seemed like he couldn’t make it ten feet without someone coming up to shake his hand and share a laugh.
Heck, I was always glad to see Bob, practically every day I came to work. When I got the top job here at CONTRACTOR I was suddenly insanely busy, but I always figured someday he would swing by the office or I’d get out to the suburbs and we’d have a chance to sit down and talk about what it was like to be the guy in charge—the one who decides what goes on the cover, what the editorial is going to be about that month. We bumped into one another at shows a few times, but for whatever reason we never got to just sit down, have a beer together and talk about it. I guess I always thought there would be more time.
I regret it terribly. Good-bye Bob. You were great, and you’ll be greatly missed.