Time for new direction, Boehler says
By Cole Boehler
Montana Tavern Times, Editor and Publisher
The Montana Tavern Times was founded November 1995 and most agree it has successfully fulfilled its mission for almost 15 years.
This monthly trade newspaper staff has diligently worked to tell the beverage, gaming and food service business story from a business perspective: we tell "the other side of the story" that never gets told anywhere else.
The Tavern Times has been a vital communications conduit between business association leaders and rank-and-file membership – even non-members – as well as to the regulatory community, the Legislature, the media and the public.
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Like the tavern business, the newspaper business can wear people out, even those who love it, especially with the constant deadlines.
As the Tavern Times owner, publisher and editor, I have always enjoyed serving the tavern business and the owners, but there comes a time when an enterprise – and its customers – will benefit from an infusion of new blood, new energy, new ideas and new passion.
That time has come for me and the Montana Tavern Times.
An ideal successor
The Tavern Times is my "baby" so I would not risk its future by rashly turning it over to someone incapable of making it succeed as a business enterprise. Nor would I risk it not continuing to function as a highly utilitarian beverage and gaming industry communications tool.
Ideally, a successor/owner would know reporting and photography and editing. He or she would know advertising fundamentals and print advertising design. That person would know page composition and newspaper production and distribution; would know how to read a P&L and balance sheet.
As importantly, that person would have some insights into the functions of industry associations; would have a grasp of the issues facing the industry; would have some idea about how to cover and report the private proceedings of business associations and could work productively, constructively with the leaders of these associations.
That person is Paul Tash, president of Tash Communications in Butte.
Paul is a 1984 University of Montana Journalism School graduate. He knows journalism and was a reporter and editor at the daily Montana Standard in Butte from 1984 to 1995.
Paul launched his own communications firm – Tash Communications – in Butte in 1995. His company operates as an advertising agency, media buyer, and public relations specialist.
He grew up in Dillon and attended high school there. He has good Montana values and knows our small-town culture. He knows what a handshake means here. And he knows and appreciates what it's like to own and operate a small business successfully.
Paul also recognized an opportunity that is a good fit with his current business, and that describes the Montana Tavern Times to a "tee."
In fact, Tash Communications has been handling the production of the Tavern Times for the last 11 months, so Paul is already familiar with the newspaper's operational aspects, and has also gotten up to speed on many of the broader issues affecting the tavern and gaming business.
He has worked closely with the Montana Gaming Research and Education Fund – worked with the research and studied the issues – and performed many valuable services for that group.
Paul also worked for the Montana Tavern Association and Gaming Industry Association as a contract public relations consultant from 1999-2004, developing news releases, editorials and so on. Hundreds of them were eventually published.
He knows personally many of the key players in the business. He will hit the ground running.
Staples ‘a great friend’
Over the course of almost 15 years, I established, savored and nurtured relationships with the MTA, GIA and Montana Coin Machine Operators Association leadership. I operated with a delicate trust that deepened over the years, especially under the guidance and tutelage of MTA Legal and Government Affairs Counsel Mark Staples.
I wrote previously, "We learned in the very beginning that Mark made our work more difficult, but he also made our product better and so we served our readers and advertisers better." Paul looks forward to continuing that vastly productive working relationship.
Moreover, Mark has become a great friend and a man I regard highly for his world experience, his many talents including the arts, his keen intelligence, his astute insights and, maybe most of all, his outrageous wit and sense of humor. I hope we always stay in touch.
In the course of my work, I also came to know many fine public servants in the government sphere: governors, attorneys general, legislators, department heads, division administrators, bureau chiefs and staff.
They were invariably highly qualified, but also helpful and gracious, even when they didn't need to be. I think we came to trust one another, too, and that's not easy in a sometimes adversarial environment.
At the June 8 MTA Board of Directors Meeting where I announced the sale, I said, "I'm asking the MTA board, officers, executive personnel and members today to please transfer the goodwill and trust that has built up between MTA and the Tavern Times over 15 years to Paul Tash and Tash Communications. Please give Paul all the benefit of the doubt right from the start. He will prove he deserves it."
That goes for everyone in the allied associations and in government as well.
Thank you
As for me, I will continue in the specialty publishing business but with a different direction. I will be available to assist Paul through the transition and through the MTA convention.
I will treasure the many friendships I have made in tavern circles and will drop in to see my friends whenever I'm in the area.
Thank you all for 15 exhilarating, rewarding, educational and delightful years.