Leonard A.C. Eiserer, pioneer newsletter journalist and publisher, dies at 90.

Leonard A.C. Eiserer, founder of Business Publishers Inc. in 1963 and a founding director of what has become the Specialized Information Publishers Association, passed away May 21, 2007, at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland. He would have been 91 years old next month. He was inducted into the newsletter foundation's Hall of Fame in 1995 and was named the association's Publisher of the Year in 1996.

Eiserer was a 1939 graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and always considered himself "first and foremost a journalist." In 1995, he gave the newsletter foundation $25,000 to have Medill conduct a study on the status and future of the newsletter industry.

He was a reporter for Aviation Weekly in Washington before and after serving in the Navy in World War II. After the war, he took on increasing responsibilities for the company's 28 publications, including general manager, until the company was sold in 1962.

That same year, a neighbor of his in Silver Spring, Rachel Carson, published Silent Spring, a book that would launch an environmental movement. Len read his neighbor's book and, at 46 years old and about half that many years in specialized publishing, Len asked himself, "Is there a publication covering this?"

With the answer of "No," he launched the first newsletter to cover the environment, Air/Water Pollution Report. In 1964, it became Clean Water Report. During the 1970s he began diversifying into other fields, eventually building BPI up to dozens of newsletter titles. He sold BPI to Jade Media Partners LLC in 2005.