Doug Moss
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Ambition and Perseverance
I’ve always “aimed high” in the goals I’ve set for myself, and I don’t
give up easily.
If I had to pick two words that sum up why I was able to
achieve in life they would be ambition and perseverance.
I’ve always “aimed high” in the goals I’ve set for myself, and I
don’t give up easily. In the process, I improve my skills at
whatever I’m attempting to do.
My childhood baseball hero, Mickey Mantle, was probably
my biggest inspiration, as were the Beatles. Mantle had a bone
disease and a history of injuries in one of his legs such that he
had to completely wrap his knee in tape before every game.
Nonetheless, despite this handicap, he went on to become
one of baseball’s all-time greatest players and the idol of
many because he was also a very modest and likable person.
And the Beatles changed popular music forever by not being
afraid to be different and by continually working to improve
themselves and to try new things along the way.
Because of Mickey Mantle’s inspiration, I took up baseball
myself and even learned to switch-hit as he did. Because
of the Beatles, I taught myself guitar and piano, and I have
since written about 25 original melodies myself. My mother
also deserves credit. A musician and hard worker herself, she
encouraged me to be active and entrepreneurial at the things
I enjoyed. As a youngster I had a paper route and also mowed
my neighbors’ lawns to earn money, while playing throughout
my younger years in Little League and Babe Ruth League, and
also playing cello in the orchestra.
Source: Printed with permission from Doug Moss, Norwalk,
Connecticut.
During the 15 years that I’ve been publishing E/The Environmental
Magazine, which is nonprofit and relies on
foundation grants for support, I have been the key person responsible
for raising money. It’s been an uphill battle, and I
joke with my coworkers at times that I could “wallpaper the
whole office” with just the stacks of rejection letters I have in
my files. But that has never deterred me. It sounds funny, but
sometimes when a “No” arrives in the mail from a foundation
from whom I’ve asked for a grant, it just energizes me to figure
out how to get a “Yes” from them next time. I’m quite
passionate about the environment and also about the need
for our media to serve us properly.
Foundations have not traditionally supported media, preferring
instead to fund projects that have clear and measurable
short-term consequences, like giving money to build a
nature center, where they can see the results of the money
they spent standing there right in front of them. But many of
the environmental issues we fight for, and the efforts needed
to win those fights, are less tangible than that, though still
very important—and a magazine like E can do a lot to educate
people, both young and old, about the importance of
safeguarding the environment. I think after years of persevering
with the foundations that provide the funding—while
at the same time putting out a well-written magazine that is a
team effort—I’ve successfully persuaded them to agree.
I grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut, catching frogs and
fishing in local ponds, but I would trace my environmentalism
to an event that occurred much later. One day, while
living in New Haven, Connecticut, after graduating with a degree
in marketing from Babson College in 1974, I watched a
TV report about the clubbing of baby harp seals in Newfoundland,
Canada (that seal hunt has now resumed in a big
way in 2004). I was outraged at what I saw, and my first impulse
was to run to the phone to call the TV station to com-
plain that they were televising this. I didn’t make the call, realizing
that the TV station was only the messenger, not the
one killing seals. Coincidentally, a few days later I saw some
people in downtown New Haven demonstrating against wearing
fur, so I joined the local antifur group. I began to get more
and more involved and, in the process, I met a whole community
of people who shared my concerns about animals and
the environment. I started to spend my free time on such
activities as gathering signatures on petitions, organizing
events, and working on newsletters.
In 1979, I left the Burroughs Corporation, with which I got
a job after college, and started my own company, Douglas
Forms. I wanted to “be my own boss” and decided to “take
the plunge” now that I knew the business forms field well.
In 2004 Douglas Forms celebrated its 25th anniversary. As it
turned out, most of my customers were magazine publishers,
and I learned a lot from them about the business of magazine
publishing. Soon a few of my friends and I decided to publish
an animal rights magazine. In late 1979 the first issue of The
Animals’ Agenda appeared.
After nine years of publishing The Animals’ Agenda, I decided
that, while I still supported animal rights concerns, my
interests were broadening to include other related concerns.
Global warming, medical waste, ozone depletion and other
issues gave me and my wife, Deborah, the idea to try our
hand at a new nonprofit magazine. I left The Animals’ Agenda
and launched a new, independent magazine that would focus
on a broad range of environmental issues.
Work began on E/The Environmental Magazine during
the “Greenhouse Summer” of 1988, amid reports of medical
waste washing up on New Jersey shores, fires in Yellowstone
Park, and growing public interest in the environment. E
debuted—after 18 months of planning, research, and networking
with the environmental community—in January 1990, in
the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster and on the eve of the
twentieth anniversary of Earth Day, just as people were dubbing
the 1990s, “the environmental decade.”
All of this has taught me that it’s important to “leave no
stone unturned” in considering the unlimited opportunities
to make the most of even just one project, such as a magazine
whose reach can be multiplied exponentially through
creative thinking.