There is a legendary story in the lore of ExchangeMonitor.
In the early 1980s, as Ed was just a few years in to building what would become ExchangeMonitor Publications & Forums, one of Ed’s first reporters was just about at his wits end after only a few months on the job.
After watching his story be rewritten for the fourth or fifth time and with his deadline long since passed, he turned to Ed and, exasperated, shouted: “This was good enough to publish an hour ago – you act like every issue is your first one.” The reporter, of course, viewed that remark as the ultimate insult but Ed wore those comments like a badge of honor until his death last week. Each new hire is usually told that story for the first of countless times during their initial interview.
And there is no better way to describe his approach at ExchangeMonitor. For Ed, there simply was no “good enough.” For his newsletters, his conferences and the company he built, it was Ed’s absolute best or it wouldn’t see the light of day. And usually, that meant countless rewrites—not on a computer but on a yellow legal pad with bits of what was once a reporter’s typewritten story Scotch-taped in between Ed’s hand-written edits.
Ed never took his subscribers for granted, never rested on his laurels or past successes. Each week was a new opportunity to prove himself and his company.
He started the company in 1981 after leaving the Carter White House and from the very beginning, it was much more than a simple commercial venture for him. He cared deeply about the people, policies and projects we covered, whether it was the low-level waste compacts, finding a solution for high-level waste and spent fuel, capturing and storing carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants, the U.S.-Russia plutonium disposition program or the cleanup of the Cold War weapons complex.
Ed loved this stuff, and he got to be a part of it until the day he died.
We will miss his tireless energy, his passion for life and his limitless curiosity about the issues he covered. But most of all, we will miss him.
Our office is quiet. Our hat rack is empty.
Rest in peace, Polish Cowboy.
Martin Schneider, CEO
