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Garry C. Myers III: Preserving a Legacy of IntegrityThroughout his 30-year tenure at Highlights for Children, Inc., Garry Myers III led the company through unprecedented growth while successfully upholding and preserving the values set forth by his grandparents, Highlights founders Dr. Garry Cleveland Myers and Caroline Clark Myers (1996 Hall of Fame Inductees). Perhaps best known for his commitment to fair and ethical business practices, Garry dedicated his career and his life to ensuring the values of the Myers family - honesty, integrity and a profound devotion to helping children learn - lived on throughout the corporation he helped build and throughout the industry as a whole. Garry Cleveland Myers III - or just plain "Garry," as he was known throughout the industry - first got involved in the family business at age 15, working for his grandparents as a mailroom clerk. However, despite being elected to the Highlights Board of Directors in 1971, he didn't start working full time for Highlights until 1975, after he had spent several years as a linguist in the U.S. Army and earned his M.B.A. in marketing. By 1978, he became vice president of mail sales and promotion, and in 1980, president of the corporation. He was named chief executive officer in 1981. When Garry took over as CEO, the company had one product - Highlights for Children magazine. Recognizing the risks associated with having only one source of revenue, Garry sought out new ways to offer the Highlights brand - "Fun with a Purpose" - to more children. "Garry brought me in with the idea of trying to leverage the Highlights brand into other channels," says Elmer Meider, president of Highlights Corporation since 1984. "Over the course of about twenty years, we managed to quadruple the size of the company." Today, in addition to the magazine, Highlights generates revenues from continuities, ancillary product lines, catalog sales, and its family of wholly-owned subsidiaries: Boyds Mills Press, Inc.; Early Years, Inc.; SDE, Inc.; Teacher's Publishing Group, Inc.; Zaner-Bloser, Inc.; and Highlights-Jigsaw Toy Factory, Ltd. While Garry led the diversification of Highlights businesses, he also made sure all of these companies' efforts remained unified under the umbrella mission of supporting children, parents and educators. According to Meider, the key to Highlights' continued success has been a strict adherence to this mission. "The bottom line was, we stuck to our knitting," he says. "We never bent to trendy things and we never lost sight of our philosophy - putting the interests of children above all else." It can be argued that Garry's commitment to the growth and success of Highlights was superseded only by his devotion to his family. But in reality, these were one and the same. "Garry grew the business, but he also took on the initiative of leading the family," says Pat Mikelson, Garry's sister and president and CEO of Highlights-Jigsaw Toy Factory, Ltd. "The company went through several transitions under his leadership, but he made sure there was 100 percent commitment from everyone in the family before he went ahead with anything." Garry created the Myers Family Council in 1993 with the purpose of communicating the family story and philosophy throughout the generations. The Council encourages involvement through rotating seats on the Board of Directors along with a fourth-generation internship program. Mikelson feels that Garry's efforts helped increase the family commitment to Highlights for Children, Inc., and, consequently, the company's commitment to the mission of its founders. "Garry expected everyone in the company to do the right thing and couldn't understand why anyone would ever do otherwise," says Meider. "In that respect, he really held Highlights high as an example for others in the industry." Highlights for Children, Inc., was awarded the 1998 Better Business Bureau National Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, an accomplishment in which Garry took great pride. "Garry was ethical as the day is long," says colleague and close friend Patricia Broderick, of Highlights subsidiary Teaching K-8 magazine. She describes Garry as always being "judicious" in his dealings with Teaching K-8 and other Highlights-owned companies. She instantly recalls the day Teaching K-8 sold to Highlights - November 1, 1985 - and points out the fact that many of the people working for the magazine 20 years ago are still there today. As testament to his extraordinary dedication to the industry, Garry served almost six years on the Ethics Operating Committee of the Direct Marketers Association, during which time he was a champion for children's rights and customer privacy issues. He fought for lower postal rates for educational publishers as chairman of the Classroom Publishers Association and served as treasurer of the Direct Selling Association. He was a member of the Advisory Board for the Magazine Publishers Association, a member of the Board of Trustees for the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, and sat on the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Direct Marketers Association. Garry also maintained memberships in the American Booksellers Association, American Management Association, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Association of Educational Publishers, and International Reading Association. Although according to friends and colleagues he'd be the last one to accept an award of any sort, Garry Myers' induction into the Educational Publishing Hall of Fame was inevitable for one who dedicated his career and his life to making the industry a better place to do business and a safer place for children to learn.
Questions, ideas, or in need of more information? Please contact Stacey Pusey at 302-295-8349.
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