By Bill Collins, Principal
I noted the passing earlier this year of Mike Russell, a Kansas City entrepreneur whose name probably doesn’t mean anything to 99.9 percent of the people reading Business First of Buffalo. But you should know about him because Russell made one of the all-time, most important contributions to Buffalo’s business community.
In July 1984 I received a call from a colleague in Louisville advising me that I would be hearing from some people about starting a business newspaper in Buffalo. My job would be to show them around so they could make a decision about whether or not to start a newspaper here.
I took this call with a grain a salt. Since the 1982 demise of the Courier-Express, not a month passed that you didn’t hear a rumor about a new newspaper. But a weekly business newspaper was a different animal and it sounded feasible.
American City Business Journals was building a chain in mid-sized markets like Kansas City, Louisville, St. Louis, Columbus and Milwaukee. Buffalo was next on their list even though they were skeptical about our town. Well, I was skeptical about THEM until the advance man told me they would be flying into Buffalo on their own jet and would stay as long as necessary.
Mike Russell was a flamboyant, self-made entrepreneur who, despite his success, could not command much attention from the Kansas City Star, a slight that drove him crazy. As I listened to him explain repeatedly for three days, places like Kansas City and Buffalo were full of people who were creating businesses and jobs and yet, because they didn’t belong to the right clubs or know the powers-that-be or because the newspapers couldn’t be bothered, you never heard about them. So he started his own newspaper--the Kansas City Business Journal. It was such a hit that he decided to take the idea to other markets.
As requested, I set up an itinerary that included meetings with many people, among them was a skeptical Mayor Jimmy Griffin, a warmly welcoming attorney Bob Fernbach and the coup d’grace, a brash Ward Fuller, the CEO of American Steamship, who hit it off with Russell better than anyone.
After a whirlwind 72 hours, Russell declared Buffalo a great, underrated city and a perfect candidate to become the sixth newspaper in his chain. And that was it. No market surveys, no focus groups, no sifting of data, no board approvals. Russell flew into Buffalo on his jet, looked around for three days, liked what he saw and made a decision on the spot. Three months later, Business First rolled off the presses.
Mike Russell was a great guy—funny, profane, bold, brutally candid and loyal. He loved underdogs because he was one, and I really think that’s why he made such a fast, intuitive decision about Buffalo, the capital city of underdogs. We’ve been fortunate to enjoy Business First for 25 years thanks to a guy who appreciated our town for what it was and what it could be.
