Sad news to report

I hate to end the week on a down note, but I just found out that Stephen Kliment passed away. Kliment, the former editor in chief of Architectural Record, died on September 10 while visiting Germany. According to an obituary posted on the Architectural Record web site, his wife said Kliment died of cancer.

Kliment worked as a magazine and book editor, an architect, and a teacher. He also served as a judge for the Best of Show competition at the Society for Marketing Professional Services' annual Build Business conference on multiple occasions.

I met him at the SMPS conference in New York in 2004, where I was judging the Best of Show entries for the first time (he had done it before that on multiple occasions) and we bonded immediately. He was not shy about offering a contrasting opinion on a marketing piece that the other judges in the room liked. But he was always charming and personable, with his forever tousled hair and dry British accent (he was born in the former Czechoslovakia and grew up in England, emigrating to the United States in 1950, according to the Architectural Record obituary).

Kliment was friends both with PSMJ founder Frank Stasiowski and ZweigWhite founder Mark Zweig. In fact, I don't know of a single person who didn't like and respect Kliment. He was a tireless advocate for the value of marketing and the importance of writing (he was editorial director for the New York chapter of the AIA's Oculus magazine, editor of the Principal's Report newsletter, and author of multiple editions of Writing for Design Professionals). He was editor of Architectural Record from 1990 to 1996.

I could go on, but the Architectural Record obit does a good job of explaining the diverse career and great impact Kliment had on the AEC industry. Check it out and then feel free to e-mail me your thoughts and remembrances of a great man. We'll post them here early next week.

Ed