20 Under 40 - 1995 Profile: Grace E. Johnston

PRESSTIME

By Presstime Magazine

First Published: December 1995

In the downhill race for ad sales, Advertising Director Gracie Johnston of the Rutland (Vt.) Herald runs a slalom course to get her paper through economic bare spots.

Successfully, we might add. "When ROP ad prospects dwindled during the recent protracted recession, she developed other revenue sources," says Robert G. Miller, the Herald's vice president and general manager.

Take Killington Edge, a niche publication Johnston developed to lure winter visitors off area ski slopes and into local shops. Published twice each winter and distributed free in racks throughout the Killington ski area, the tab answers the needs of downtown Rutland merchants who saw thousands of affluent skiers streaming to the resort but few going the extra 10 miles into Rutland to shop. It brings in $12,000 annually to the 22,494-circulation daily.

Among Johnston's other innovations: a real-estate quarterfold, a dining guide for tourists and a single-sheet insert program. "What I try to do is leave no rock unturned and take advantage of every opportunity," says Johnston.

In 1979, feeling stuck in a job as a nursing-home activity director, Johnston asked the advertising director of the Transcript-Telegram in Holyoke, Mass., for a chance to prove she could sell. Three years later, still the ad staff's youngest member, she became retail-ad manager.

Now she mentors and trains salespeople, not just at the Herald but as a discussion leader at the American Press Institute in Reston, Va., and as a presenter for the Newspaper Satellite Network in Dallas. "If we don't satisfy our customers' needs, we aren't going to be here," she tells reps. "And we have to do it with enthusiasm and excitement."