Jim Marshall enters newsletter Hall of Fame, thanking the women in his life.

James J. Marshall, senior correspondent and former publisher of The Newsletter on Newsletters, was inducted into the Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association Hall of Fame at the recent NEPA conference in Washington.

Founding member of NEPA

Jim was one of the 17 founding members of the newsletter association, in 1976, when he was publisher of Government Information Services and Education Funding Research Council in Washington.

He served many years on NEPA's board of directors, including president in 1983-84. He's also been a board member of the Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Foundation for well over a decade, and he has served as jury chair for the foundation's Newsletter Journalism Awards--no doubt a reflection of his background as both a journalist and the press secretary to Rhode Island Governor John Chafee.

He sold his newsletter properties to Richard Thompson in 1997 and moved back to his home state of Rhode Island. Soon bored with retirement, Jim purchased NL/NL from Howard Penn Hudson in 1999.

By late spring of 2001, Jim remembered why he retired in the first place and sold this newsletter to its editor. He remains active in both the Foundation and NL/NL, between golf games.

"A mentor to us all"

Fraser Lang, president of Manisses Communications Group Inc., also in Rhode Island, introduced Jim at the luncheon. "We honor Jim today as an outstanding volunteer, as a founding member of NEPA--as a journalist, as a marketer, as a businessman--someone with solid accomplishments.

"Now let me tell you where I think Jim earns his real superlatives," Lang said. "Jim Marshall is the most decent, compassionate, principled, generous and good-natured person I've met in this or any business ....

"I have never seen Jim treat anyone--employee, vendor, competitor--with anything but fairness and integrity."

Lang concluded, "Today we induct James J. Marshall into the Publishers Hall of Fame. His tribute should read that he is a good and decent man who just keeps on giving to others. Jim Marshall, my good friend, can serve as a mentor to us all."

"It's how we treat people"

In accepting the Hall of Fame honor, Jim recounted his early days in the newsletter business, as well as stories about the zany occupants of the National Press Building where he had offices in the early '70s.

"There was Ralph Nader's auto safety group and only a few doors away the Auto Tire Safety Council, an industry-backed lobbying group opposed to many of Nader's causes."

Marshall told the audience what he thought matters most: "The big picture in life isn't about how successful we are in business, nor about how much money we make, how many honors we get.

"What makes us real is our relationships with others--and how we respond to those relationships. It's how we treat people. It's about being real--real with ourselves and with others."

He also paid tribute "to the most important people in my life--all women. My mom, my late wife, Kathleen, my current wife, Lila, and my two daughters, Kathleen and Mary Elizabeth."

Jim Marshall, 4 Indigo Road, Barrignton, RI 02806, 401-245-1047, [e-mail].