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Everything you have read about HWH PR so far has been about how to achieve the most out of a public relations program. All of this knowledge really stems from the personal and professional business lives of the company founders. They consider themselves students of human nature. They watch how people work and play. They note their body language. They share in their hopes and dreams.
The founders of HWH are made up of the same aspirations as many of their clients. They are the most diversified, off-beat and spontaneous characters you will ever meet.
ELIOT HESS
Eliot Hess, Chairman of HWH, is responsible for the financial side of the agency. Being a true Virgo, the financial records at HWH look like the gift department at Bloomingdale's. Every accountant who has ever consulted for the agency claims he or she has never seen such organized systems, even at the largest companies. Numbers are a hobby for Hess. That's why it's easy for him to run an efficient, well-organized company. It's not a challenge, it's a way of life.
The passion for numbers extends itself to his long-running collection of stamps, coins, miniature train and car sets, antique cameras, comic books, trading cards and all kinds of memorabilia. He has spent many a winter night assembling 5,000 piece jigsaw and three-dimensional, free-standing puzzles, which have been donated to hospitals all over the city.
An avid reader, Hess is the trivia king. It's a rare person who can beat him at Trivial Pursuit. In the last several years, he has also become a big Knicks fan. Hess is president of his co-op, and he serves as a consultant in the real estate and financial industries.
However, there is very much an artistic side to this numbers man. He studied architecture at the prestigious Brooklyn Tech and Pratt Institute and is a skilled craftsman. He found his favorite passion, photography, at The School of Visual Arts. His photographs have been published in leading magazines and his special series of abstract shots of The Empire State Building was exhibited in the lobby of the building to celebrate its 50th anniversary over 15 years ago. The collection also traveled to various galleries and museums. Many of the photos are exhibited in the hallways of HWH.
There was a stretch in Hess' life during the late '60s, early '70s that only his artistic side prevailed. He was one of the original hippies, had longer hair than most women his age, toured the United States in a VW camper van, marched on Washington and attended the original Woodstock, every muddy part of it.
It was during one of his journeys, that Hess conceived, created and published "The Munchies Eatbook," a collection of easy to prepare recipes that quickly satisfied impulsive bouts of hunger. The cookbook turned out to be one of Random House's best-sellers.
LOIS WHITMAN
It was around this time that Hess met the very conservative Lois Whitman, who at this point, had devoted the past eight years building up her career as an "ace" reporter covering consumer electronics products at Home Furnishings Daily (now HFN), a Fairchild Publication. She started at Fairchild as a copy girl in 1966 while she attended her second year at Queens College. As far back as she can remember, Whitman wanted to pursue a career in journalism. Her first reporting jobs were covering female sports as a columnist for her junior and senior high school newspapers. Whitman also was a youth reporter for the Long Island Press and the New York Post.
Joining Fairchild was one of the luckiest moments of Whitman's career. College was very important but she really didn't blossom until she smelled the ink coming from the printing plant on the lower floors of the Greenwich Village publishing establishment. It was an awesome experience for her to watch all of the editors at WWD, HFD, and DNR research and write their stories early everyday and then see their articles appear in their respective newspapers by 4 in the afternoon. As a copy girl, Whitman was assigned to retrieve and deliver the "just off the press" copies of the newspapers to the hot shots of the time like John Fairchild, James Brady, June Weir, Chauncey Howell, Rex Reed and Howard Kissell.
The thrill of seeing the smiles on their faces as she delivered their newspapers to them was exhilarating. Whitman then knew she too was born to "report." In the late '60s she pursued Jackie O, Lana Turner, Kim Novak and Liz Taylor with the Fairchild paparazzi and she assisted in the coverage of some of the biggest fashion debuts of the time, Halston, Gucci, Anne Klein, and Yves St. Laurent.
But the real test of her ambition came when she was promoted from the ranks of the copy kid pool to a reporter covering consumer electronics for HFD. She reported on new technologies but became the darling of retailers across the country because she truly understood the challenges of their business. It was just a few years later that the industry considered her a retail analyst, a confidant, and a networking machine. Whitman also wrote a weekly column within the consumer electronics section of HFD that talked about the personal side of the business. One of her most important fans was the publisher of a competing publication, Richard Ekstract of CES Publishing. Entrepreneur extraordinare, Ekstract recruited Whitman to become managing editor of his flagship publication, Consumer Electronics monthly (now Twice), where she worked for Cathy Ciccolella, another industry veteran. The art director of CE monthly and a host of other CES publications was Eliot Hess.
Hess and Whitman teamed up to make CE monthly and the Consumer Electronics Shows Dailies, the voice of the industry. They worked side by side for three years before starting HWH.
20 YEARS LATER...
Their 20-year journey at HWH has been the entrepreneurial American dream. As a PR agency, Hess and Whitman have built up a company that is extremely respected in the high-tech business. Twelve years ago they made a special effort to expand outside the scopes of high tech, and have made tremendous strides in the worlds of education, health, food, fashion, entertainment, publishing, inventions, licensing, housewares, fitness, law, toys, etc. Their accomplishments are enormous, so much that they continue to attract more challenging clients every day. They plan to keep the momentum going for at least another 20 rounds serving their clients in the special way they have come to expect from HWH. |
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