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45“Have
you read this book?” Jack Moffly poses the question conspiratorially,
writer to writer, pointing to a copy of Without Reservation: How
a Controversial Indian Tribe Rose to Power and Built the World’s
Largest Casino. “It’s great,” he says. “I’m
reading it for an article I’m writing for the magazine.”
“The magazine” is Greenwich magazine, and Moffly is the
publisher. After 30 years of working in advertising and marketing
at Time, Inc., Moffly bought a barely profitable rag sheet called
The Greenwich Review, based in Greenwich, Conn. He and his wife,
Donna, transformed the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan—a
glossy 240-page magazine appealing to the tastes of the upscale
Fairfield County town in which they lived, with Donna as editor.
“We intended to build it up and sell it in a few years,”
laughs Moffly, who 16 years later pulls in over $5 million a year
in ad revenues from Greenwich magazine and its offshoots, Westport
magazine and New Canaan Darien magazine. “The formula was simple
and unique,” says Moffly. “We’re a town magazine
focused on an affluent community. Even though we have a small circulation,
we generate more advertising per reader than any other consumer
magazine.” Other keys to success are “a great art department,
a darn good group of editors, and an excellent stable of writers.”
The magazine biz has become a family act, with son Jonathan, who
originally was an electrical engineer, helping launch Westport magazine
and subsequently New Canaan Darien magazine. Jonathan, who “has
entrepreneurial leanings,” says Moffly, is now the publisher
of those two magazines. Donna, Moffly’s wife of 41 years, whom
he describes as “the creative one,” serves as editor-in-chief
for all three magazines. The Mofflys’ daughter, Audrey, is
an artist who also lives in Fairfield County.
“It’s been a wonderful experience to see Greenwich magazine
grow and see it branch out to two other magazines,” Moffly
smiles. “We started off in a one-room office with a rotary
phone and one manual typewriter. Now we have three offices with
32 employees and more computers than we have employees.”
“My first love is writing,” says Moffly, who writes “The
Publisher’s Page” and editorials for Greenwich magazine.
About Andover, he treasures “the self-discipline it engenders
in its students and the really great background it gave me in English,
writing and research,” he says. “It has been enormously
helpful in my role as both a journalist and publisher.”
While considered a member of the PA class of ’45, Moffly graduated
all by himself in December 1944 in order to join the Air Force in
January 1945. “There were Plan A and Plan B during the war,”
Moffly laughs, remembering his graduation. “I was Plan X.”
“I’m very proud of having gone to Andover,” he says
with emphasis. “I’ve been back to a number of reunions.
I missed my 55th, but was there for the 50th.” He leans forward
and says softly, “You know, after Andover, the first year of
Princeton was a snap, which was very misleading, because in the
second year I realized I had to work.”
Moffly has been working hard ever since, and even in his “retirement
job” he shows no sign of stopping. “It’s been a lot
of hard work,” he says. “It’s also been a lot of
fun.”
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