Nancy Klosek
Editor in Chief | Dealerscope
Consistently ‘Wonderful’ for an Entire Career
It was with tremendous excitement that the staff of Dealerscope made the rather easy decision to include our soon-to-be-retired Editor In Chief, Nancy Klosek, in the Dealerscope Hall of Fame.
After all, when you’ve been covering the consumer electronics industry for close to 40 years, and the first thing everyone says whenever your name comes up is, “Oh, I love her. What a wonderful person,” you’ve clearly been doing something right. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. and raised and still living in the Queens house where she grew up, she admits to being a “sticker” – someone who thrives in familiar surroundings. You can add innumerable CES shows to that list of familiar surroundings as well. Her long and varied career in publishing began back in the late ’70s, as after graduating from NYU, she took a job with a leisure boating trade publication.
“I learned about the value of B-to-B magazines early on, and the nuts and bolts of how to put a ‘book’ together in the pre-desktop-publishing era of manual typewriters, rubber cement, photo-cropping tools and china markers,” she recalls. “I had some great colleagues there – wonderful writers and reporters, including current CE Daily Managing Editor Paul Gluckman – all of whom eventually segued into consumer electronics publishing!”
An Affinity for Japanese Culture
She credits Gluckman with her eventual move to the CE industry, as he helped her land a job in 1983 working for AudioVideo International, a Japanese-owned CE trade magazine. “I remained there for 21 years. In that stretch, I cultivated longstanding industry friendships with press colleagues, dealers and vendors. I also developed ties with my Japanese colleagues that endure to this day, as well as gaining a great fondness for Japanese customs and culture,” she adds.
In 2004, she phased into the post of a ‘work-from-home’ editor to report and write for Dealerscope Magazine and its then-sister publication for installation professionals, Custom Retailer. Some 16 years later, she will retire as the Editor in Chief of both Dealerscope and of CT Lab Global Media’s custom integration trade publication, Connected Design.
When asked to name a few career memories that stand out among a long list, she says, “There are many, many highlights, but I would have to say my frequent travels to Japan, courtesy of Panasonic and Sony, are right up there. Also, being around this industry on the cusp of major technology intros – the first press conference I attended was the Philips Compact Disc technology debut – has been a privilege.”
However, as is so often the case, the people she has encountered along the way have left the most lasting impression.
“I have to say, also, what a joy it’s been to work among such bright, funny editors here at Dealerscope, and to make friends with and pal around with reporters who work for the competition,” she admits. “I have also enjoyed collaborating side by side with sterling PR, marketing and sales people (including my current colleagues at Dealerscope and Connected Design), and have been fortunate to be able to engage with and write about industry legends. It was never a chore to get a terrific quote (usually over a bourbon) from colorful individuals like the late Joe Clayton of DISH and RCA.”
One of the most enjoyable benefits of working as the editor of any magazine is the travel, and Klosek’s fondest memories revolve around those trips.
“There are so many great memories from the travel, it’s very difficult to pick just a few, but here’s a partial list: The trips to Japan – always memorable. Then there were 37 years of attending (and wearing out shoe leather) at all those non-virtual CES Shows, press junkets, and distributor and buying group meetings that have taken me to Las Vegas and countless other U.S. cities, and to many corners of the globe – including Berlin, to cover our parent company’s IFA show,” she recalls. “And all these trips were made so that I could report on a what is a really fun subject: consumer electronics. I have been very lucky.”
As for the future of the industry she has so loved to cover, in typical Klosek fashion, she is concerned about her retail readers.
“I am hopeful that online CE shopping, which had a foothold pre-pandemic but has really gained ground exponentially as COVID has continued, will not end up totally usurping the showroom experience that the lion’s share of Dealerscope’s readers are so good at providing,” she says. “’High touch’ is the mantra of the very best retailers, and it never ceases to amaze me how these entrepreneurs manage to so nimbly adapt to all manner of adverse circumstances. Long may they reign!”
She plans on keeping her foot in the door, post-retirement, as her aforementioned tendency to be a “sticker” will undoubtedly make it tough to stay away completely. Couple that with our desire to want her to hang around for a while longer. And to that, we add, “You’re not getting rid of us that easily, Ms. Klosek.”
