Above from left: Tim O'Connell, directory and list specialist; Beth Moorman, production director; Mike Gribbin, Executive Publishing; Chris Hodges, senior sales consultant; Nicole Harris, former president and CEO, NGA.
This is a friendly, one-time takeover of this column. Katy Devlin graciously suggested I commemorate this magazine’s 75th anniversary by looking back on my NGA start as editor-in-chief, and by the time you read this, former National Glass Association president and CEO.
When I joined NGA in June 1990, Glass Magazine was published monthly. I hosted a glazier focus group to learn how Glass Magazine was viewed. After a lot of prodding, one of the attendees held up Glass Digest and said, “This is our industry bible; this is the only thing I read.” Heads nodded.
Target identified! After that, I decided that we would work to make Glass Magazine the number one magazine in the industry, and I couldn’t have done that alone. Some of the same people alongside me then are here today, and I want to acknowledge their impact.
Beth Moorman (NGA circa 1996) is our magazine production director, who, like me, retires this year. Beth and I started our publishing careers with typesetting machines, rubyliths, bluelines and midnight print proofs checks. One day Beth walked into my office and declared: “We can save $80,000 year if we go all-digital with our print files.” Glass Magazine was among the first trade magazines to make this technological leap, one of many cost-saving improvements Beth suggested while serving as our deadline drill sergeant.
Jeff Smith (NGA circa 1995) joined NGA with no magazine experience. He wanted out of his Blockbuster manager job and sold me on his math and spreadsheet skills. Jeff was instrumental in calculating our advertising market share, building our profitable product directories and everything else I threw at him. Jeff was also our first “remote” employee, decades before that was a thing. Jeff is now director, association services and analytics.
Michele Nosko (NGA circa 1991 and 2015) started her NGA career as a circulation assistant. One day, she walked into my office and declared she wanted to do something new, adding that she had a marketing degree. Soon, she was heading up NGA’s much-needed marketing department. When the Great Recession hit, Michele moved on to another trade association. She made me work very hard to convince her to come back to NGA after I became president in 2014. Michele is NGA’s chief operating officer.
Jenni Chase (NGA circa 1998 and 2005) was a punk rocker wannabe news anchor who scored A+ on her editing and proofing tests. When Jenni moved to Colorado, it wasn’t long before I called her up to ask, “How do you like your new job?” and ultimately lured her back to run AutoGlass—from home. Our remote staff was growing, and Jenni leveraged her editors to re-engineer NGA’s education and training programs. Jenni is vice president of workforce development.
Katy Devlin (NGA circa 2004) started as an intern, and though I can’t take credit for hiring her, I lay claim to keeping Katy for NGA when she decided to move from Maryland to Brooklyn to Santa Barbara to Milwaukee. Katy became our second-ever remote employee and a far better editor-in-chief than I ever was. Her talent for content development and her deep industry knowledge and connections are behind the programming for NGA’s events, soon to include the NGA Glass Fabricator Conference (GFAB) launching in 2026. Katy is vice president of content and programming.
As you can see on the masthead, the Glass Magazine dream team includes many other talented people, listed here with their “years with NGA”: Cory Thacker (17), Chris Hodges (17), Emily Thompson (11), Norah Dick (8), Tristan Scoffield (5), Cameron Francis (3), Tara Lukasik (3), Rachel Vitello (3), Holly Robinson (1), and Cathy Underwood (1).
I leave NGA after 35 years with a deep fondness and respect for Glass Magazine. I’m proud of our many successes, including expanding our glass and glazing coverage across multiple online platforms; our publishing “firsts” like the Top 50 Glaziers list in 1992, Top Fabricators list, and Architect’s Guides; breaking the important stories; surviving the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic; and our integrity—always publishing only verified reporting.
Glass Magazine, along with Window + Door, were the wellspring for much of NGA’s growth; from the building of GlassBuild America and our education and training programs to the credibility underlying the combination of NGA and the Glass Association of North America (GANA) and resulting advocacy into the technical powerhouse you know today.
As the glass and glazing industry evolves, I know Glass Magazine will continue to inform, reflect and anticipate the road ahead for NGA members and the world of glass. That’s an anniversary to celebrate now, and for years to come.
A Production Director Closes the Book on Three Decades
Beth Moorman, production director, Glass Magazine and Window + Door
In addition to this being the 75th anniversary of Glass Magazine, 2025 is also the year that Beth Moorman, production director of both Glass Magazine and Window + Door, retires. After 29 years at the National Glass Association, Moorman will be closing the book, so to speak, on her long career in printing and publishing. Before she left, she sat down with Editor Norah Dick to discuss the magazine, how it’s changed during her tenure and what makes Glass Magazine special.
Technology shaped printing and publishing
“We’ve reinvented the production process four different times in the 29 years I’ve been here,” Moorman says. When she started at the National Glass Association in 1996, the magazine used film for page layout, and many parts of the layout process itself could not be done in-house. “All the advertising materials were submitted as pieces of film, and then the designer would create the page layout with just empty boxes where the advertising had to be placed,” she explains. The printer would then add in those ads and graphics when printing.
Gradually, more processes came in-house thanks to software and technology. Programs like Copy Dot allowed graphics to be digitized, including ads. Eventually, software became so advanced that Moorman and other members of the publications team took professional classes on how to switch from using Quark Express, the industry standard in publishing software for many years, to Adobe’s new platform, InDesign, which launched in 1999.
Looking back at 29 years
Reflecting on her three decades coordinating production, Moorman says that among her favorite issues was a special 1998 issue honoring the 50th anniversary of NGA, which featured special decade-themed inserts narrating the long history of the glass industry. “Our designer at the time did a fabulous job with those, and it was a fun project we all collaborated on,” she says.
She adds that one of the best things about working in production is the consistency between jobs: “Printing is printing,” she says. Despite the fact that the subject matter she’s printing doesn’t affect how it’s printed, she’s glad to have learned about architectural glass.
“I do like glass because it’s a subject I didn’t know anything about, and you can’t help but learn about something by seeing and reading about it,” she says. “It has never been boring.”
