The Milwaukee Magazine Article
By Tom HigniteIt may seem unusual that someone would have a Web site created to accompany a magazine article, but in an age of technology it seems like a good way to reach out to those who have read the December 2006 issue of Milwaukee Magazine's article about me and company. As I am writing this in early November, Daniel Libit's article has not yet been seen by the public or by me. Before I read the article, I admit I really have no idea as to whether this article will be written either favorably, negatively, or biased, or unbiased towards me. My aim here is to simply offer my views to give readers a glimpse into just how such an article was written and put together, from the subject's (that's me) side of things.
My secretary, Carol, called me on my two-way radio early this last spring asking me to return a phone call from a Milwaukee Magazine reporter. Mr. Libit told me he was the Assistant Editor to the magazine and wanted to interview me for an article. When I asked him what kind of article he was doing, he said that he looked at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel past articles about me and found that no one had ever done a story about me personally, so he wanted to do an interview-type story. In my five year (no degree) history in art and advertising schools, this seemed like a good idea to help promote my business and perhaps some of the Christian causes my wife and I were involved with.
The first interview (at the time, I thought this would also be the last interview) took place at my Richfield home where I also run our advertising/marketing division from. Our Marketing Department had grown in the past two years to also become an animation studio employing about a dozen artists. We worked between my Richfield home and our main Town Of Polk office just two miles down the road. Just a few blocks away, we also had a few of our model homes which Mr. Libit also had an opportunity to see. In our long 2 1/2 hour interview between Mr. Libit, my wife Jacquie, and I, we covered everything from our business and family to philosophy and religion. The tone of everything was most cordial and enthusiastic. Mr. Libit asked to talk to a few of my home building division staffers as well as some family members like my Mom, Dad and brothers. I thought this was a little more "in-depth" than I had expected, but I couldn't see the harm. When asked, Mr. Libit thought that the article might appear in a few months since a magazine needs a lot of lead time. A few days later Mr. Libit sent a photographer to take a few photographs to accompany the story and that, I thought, was the end of the process.
As the weeks past, Mr. Libit had an interview with my father. He took one of my brothers to lunch for an interview, and talked to some of my staff. I tried to encourage him to talk to some of my (former Disney and Warner Brothers) artists because they all had interesting stories of their past. At first, there seemed to be little interest in that angle of the story. Later Mr. Libit did take me up on the offer and talked to a few of our artists.