| When working at full steam in the 70s and 80s, he was considered by his contemporaries to be the best Editor in the wire and cable industry. Richard "Dick" Callahan left us on 22 November 2001, following a long battle with ill health, at his home in Greensboro, NC, USA. Born in New York and raised in Chicago, he gained first hand professional journalistic experience on the Chicago Tribune whilst attending college, then moved on to McGraw Hill (MH), a famous and respected publishing house producing an extensive range of trade magazines. Dick's experience on the editorial staff at MH in the late 60s and early 70s culminated in his appointment as editor of "33 Magazine" for steel producers, and later as an editor on "American Metal Market". This metallic interest and connection served him well when he became editor of "Wire and Wire Products" which, under his competent penmanship, enjoyed wide readership and circulation in the North Americas for a decade or more, before it was subsequently sold to the Wire Association in Guilford, CT, USA, and absorbed into "Wire Journal".
With extraordinary energy and enthusiasm for publishing in this industry sector, Dick initiated and developed a string of other publications, which have seriously contributed to the well being and understanding within the many facets of the wire and wire product industries. They include "Wire Technology" (before it was taken over by Initial Publications); "Directory of Wire Companies"; "Rod, Wire and Fastener Magazine"; "Fastener Industry News"; and, during more recent times. the regular "Wire Industry News" (WIN). His communication skills won him hundreds of friends in the industry, and thousands of readers within and beyond the shores of the United States. He received prestigious awards and acknowledgements from USA associations and august bodies.
During the early 1970s, when I first met him, Dick was the pathfinder, instigator and enthusiast, responsible for introducing US wire producers and machinery builders to the wider markets of Europe, and further afield, when he took a group of US "wiremen" to one of the first Wire Exhibitions held in Basle, Switzerland. This exhibition has subsequently become "wire D�sseldorf" the world's largest trade fair for this industry, held in Germany every two years. Another of his creative developments was, in 1980, when he founded the New England Wire and Cable Club of producers and suppliers who regularly meet at technical as well as social events. This project was extended to the "sun belt" states in 1992, when he formed the Sunbelt Wire and Cable Club. During this period and previously, not a little credit must go to Dick's wife Harriet, who helped him enormously with his communications and the administration of his regular WIN - Wire Industry News. Harriet died shortly before Dick, in May of 2001.
As Dorothy Fabian, who worked with Dick at MH and on "Wire and Wire Products" and is now an editor on this magazine, puts it: "He was a superb human being, generous, hilarious, a tireless workhorse and devoted to the industry". Dorothy was also the first managing editor of MH's "33-Metals Producing" (of which Dick was founding editor) and recalls the cover of the flagship issue. "Dick commissioned an original oil painting of the "steel mark" sign for the first cover. The publishers were vehemently against it, as being too 'arty' and peculiar for the steel industry. But Dick, typically, was insistent and prevailed. It became the most talked-about cover in that magazine's history, and subsequently a hot collectible. Decades on, people still mention it to me".
I was privileged to have known Dick for many years, and enjoyed on numerous occasions some special industry moments and events, as well as dinner with him and Harriet, usually at the time of the "Interwire" shows in Atlanta. I miss him. He gave a lot to his profession, and we have lost an astute observer and excellent recorder of the happenings and trends in this ubiquitous industry.
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