Tom's communication blog
current blog | Fr. Tom Rochford SJ: bio | previous entries | contact him | jescom

Posted: May 5

Pretty good company

A 10-year run is pretty impressive. American bicyclist Lance Armstrong will enter the record books if he wins the Tour de France this summer because he will be the first cyclist ever to have won six consecutive Tours. Me—I just finished a 10-year run of board meetings for Company magazine. In 1995 we put in a term limit of three three-year terms, but started the clock from that decision. So my previous year on the board did not count, not did the three years I served on an earlier version of the board.

Company is a quarterly magazine that the Jesuits of the United States publish to offer news of “the world of Jesuits and their friends” as the tagline says. I have been involved with it since the very beginning since I designed the original type treatment of the name on the cover and then also did the redesign a few years ago. Over the years the magazine has been steadily improving as it brings a broad perspective on the range of activities of Jesuits and their lay colleagues. Marty McHugh, a layman and Chicago native, is the editor; for years Father Ed Schmidt handled the finances and helped edit the magazine. Last year we recruited Father Dick Van de Velde to take Ed’s place when Father General tagged Ed to become the provincial of the Chicago province. Ed had a run of 20 years with Company, and it took Father General to pry him out of the Company job but he did not have to leave the city of Chicago. I tried unsuccessfuly to recruit Ed for a job in Washington, D.C., but his Chicago roots were too deep. The magazine he helped produce, however, easily covers the globe as it follows footloose Jesuits who make themselves available to serve the Church anywhere that frequent flyer miles accumulate.

Company’s board meets twice a year, in September and May, which coincindentally are usually the two best months for that city on the lake. This year a cold front greeted us but could not affect the warmth I feel for the fellow members of the board. When it came time to discuss replacements for myself and Father Walter Dye, I admitted that our operative principle in selecting candidates for the board used to be that we would pick friends we wanted to see twice each year. Of course, our friends were all involved in communications or publications. Nevertheless, being on a board is more fun if you like the people you serve with. Over time, we expanded the criteria to include lay people who contribute some expertise and we also started asking younger Jesuits who were not part of our peer group. Last Saturday as I looked around the table, I realized that this more diverse group had become friends as we threw ourselves into the mission of guiding and improving the magazine. And that is always the way it goes with the Society of Jesus: your friendship deepens because of the apostolic work you share.

So I won’t be sitting at the table next September, but I will be able to call on my friends for help and I look forward to the trip that will take me through whatever city they live in. We Jesuits keep good company.

back to previous entries