2008 Most Influential Women Honoree: Joan Whitaker

When she and husband Gary bought 417 Magazine in 2001, they knew nothing about publishing.

“It was really scary,” she says. “I’d lay awake at night wondering. ‘How in the world are we going to publish a magazine every month?”

The Whitakers discovered Springfield when Gary accepted a job with KSPR in 1995. Joan and the couple’s two children stayed in St. Louis until their daughter, Logan, graduated from high school. Joan moved in 1997 and also worked at KSPR. She left in 2000 to do marketing consulting, and Gary eventually joined her.

When 417’s parent company sold it, the magazine needed help putting a marketing and editorial plan together.

The Whitakers took on the task, thinking they’d get an opportunity to implement their ideas.

Instead, they were offered the chance to purchase 417 and run the whole operation.

“I’m shaking my head ‘no,’” Whitaker says, and “Gary’s shaking his head, ‘yeah.’”

Gary and his brother had recently sold their parents’ house, so the Whitakers offered their share of the profit as the purchase price for 417 and took out a home equity loan for operating capital.

“We thought we had enough money to maybe last until the end of the year,” Whitaker says. “It was stressful, because financially, you don’t know if you’re going to make it. We had a daughter in college and a son finishing high school and going to college. Our house was on the line.”

Whitaker, who has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Florida, remembers an a-ha moment when her sister-in-law, an accountant, was helping out with the financials and said that the crazy publishing venture would work out in the end. Whitaker wasn’t convinced.

“I said, ‘How can you be so sure?” She looked me in the eye and said, ‘You don’t have any choice,’” Whitaker says. “I thought, ‘Well, yeah, you’re right.’”

The tide began a positive turn in October 2001, five months after the purchase — and none too soon, as the Whitakers’ home-equity loan had a balance of $63.

“It really was quick. I didn’t think so at the time, but looking back on it, we just worked really hard,” Whitaker says.

“There’s a lot of difference between getting a paycheck and writing a paycheck. There’s a lot of responsibility.”

Now in its 10th year of publication, 417 has expanded from 48 pages and 600 subscribers to 200 pages and 17,000 copies a month. In 2005, 417 launched GO magazine.

In 2006, the City and Regional Magazine Association named 417 the Fastest Growing Magazine, and 316 Publishing was created last year to publish Wichita magazine in Kansas.

Name an influential woman, living or dead, you’d like to meet. Why?

Grace Kelly. She succeeded in a stunning movie career, chucked it all to become a princess, and handled all the shenanigans of her children with, well … grace. I’ve always admired her.

As a young girl, what were your career aspirations?

(I wanted to be) tall and thin (when I grew up).

What celebrity have others compared you to, or do you identify with?

No one has ever compared me to a celebrity, but if they were to, I’m sure it would be Charlize Theron. It’s the whole tall and thin association.

What advice do you have for young women just getting started professionally?

If you have tattoos, cover them up.

Tell us about your family.

My husband, Gary, and I have been married for 32 blissful years. He’s my partner in every way. We have two wonderful adult children who both work with us at Whitaker Publishing. Our daughter, Logan, is associate publisher and, by the time this is published, she and her husband, Dave, will have given us our first grandchild, a baby girl. Our son, Dylan, is circulation manager and is engaged to the ever-fabulous Anna Eberle-Mayse. Although I grew up in Central Florida, my entire immediate family now lives in Springfield: mother Ruth Sullivan and brother Gary Sullivan and his wife, Cyndi.

Web Exclusive: What pageant honor does Joan hold?

Answer: She was second runner-up in the Miss Farm Bureau Pageant in 1974. “There were three of us in the competition,” she says. [[In-content Ad]]