1st Issue Cover

Our company has been publishing the Peninsula Magazine for over 14 years. We have not only published 52 Issues of Peninsula Magazine and 11 issues of Southside Magazine, but have also reached the major milestone of publishing over one million magazines - 1,056,000 magazines to be exact.
The key to our success over the past 14 years of publishing has been the development of long-standing relationships with our advertisers. The magazine is simply about people, good people who make a difference each day. Keep this in mind as you read through this website and our pages. It takes the efforts of more than 75 people to bring each issue to you. Throughout you will notice photos of most of them, and it is our hope that over time you will get a feeling of comfort, trust and friendship with each of them.

As a special tribute to all those who have helped us reach this major milestone, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you a condensed version of the history of our magazine company.

In the Fall of 1988, Wayne Block, Sports Information Director for CNU, and I were working together to produce small projects, from promotional pieces for businesses to in-room hotel directories. One day in Wayne’s office, I noticed a small weekly magazine on his desk called This Week in High Point (NC). I said to him half-jokingly that the Peninsula needed a magazine and that we should do it. Soon we were researching the market and spreading the word that we were starting This Month on the Peninsula. I convinced my brother Paul, from New Jersey, to move to Newport News to help sell advertising. Still to this day, that was probably one of my greatest sales pitches, since that we had no prototype or sales material and only $1,000 in start up capital to begin this project.
In February 1991, Paul and I began cold-call selling throughout the Peninsula, trying to create advertiser support. We signed our first agreement in May with Captain Mike from the Miss Hampton II harbor cruises. One week later Joe Yurko from the Hampton IHOP signed, and soon thereafter, PD from the Grey Goose came on board. I am very proud to say that each of them still advertises with us today.

Another life-changing event happened May of 1991. Since Paul was new to the area, I brought him to Downtown Hampton to a Friday after-work party at Mill Point to meet people. As it turned out, I was the one to meet someone new that night. I was introduced to Heidi Cook, who five years later became my wife, my partner in business, my partner as editor and my partner in life. Without her support during the very difficult early years of the business, there would be no reason to celebrate this millionth issue.

Within the next year-and-a-half, several dozen advertisers signed on to try the magazine. Four of those are still with us to this day: the Virginia Living Museum, the Radisson Hotel, the Virginia Air and Space Center and Old Point National Bank.

In July 1994, the business was just over two years old and barely surviving. Several changes were proposed to try to make it more profitable. Most of them involved further investment, and Wayne and his wife Linda had decided that they couldn’t put any more money into the business. Heidi, Paul and I offered them a buy-out. After hearing our business plan, Mr. George Wallace, Mr. Ben Williams and several other members of the IDA committee offered us an SBA loan through the Economic Development Authority of Hampton. We paid a deposit on the business to the Blocks, bought a computer, and made several major changes to the way we did business.

The biggest change was investing money into the distribution structure and the design and layout of the magazine. The new target group of readers became locals and business owners through direct mail.

1st Southside Issue Cover

Over the next eight years, Peninsula Magazine built a team of loyal and committed staff, along with a solid base of long-term advertisers and a readership that looked forward to each new issue.

In May 2002, we unveiled our first issue of Southside Magazine, a sister publication designed to offer the readers of the Southside their own positive, professional magazine that those on the Peninsula had come to love.

This brings us to today and our Millionth Issue Celebration, and we invite you to celebrate with us.

It is our goal with each issue to inform, educate and entertain you, the reader. We hope to get you to smile, to make more informed decisions, to learn something new, to discover our local history, to be knowledgeable about our local economy, and to do business with quality companies.
The mission statement of both of our magazines is quite simple yet worthy of sharing. We strive to promote the positive people, places and businesses of Hampton Roads.

Each quarter, Peninsula and Southside Magazines are distributed by direct mail to 16 upscale golf course communities and to over 29,000 business owners. This makes our annual readership of both magazines combined well over 340,000 readers.

There is a special group of advertisers who have helped make our success a reality. To demonstrate our thanks to these advertisers we have created the Peninsula/Southside Magazine Hall of Fame. Please take a moment to click on the link that pays tribute to this special group for it is they who enable you to enjoy this issue. The logos in the scroll are linked to each of the advertiser’s websites if you would like to learn more info about them.

Try to make every day the best day of your life. Share your smile, and say the positive things that we often tend to put off until another day. I hope you feel as good reading the magazine as we feel about bringing it to you.