On Another Note: Retire? Me?

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 9/6/2004

Maybe it is just that time of year. First, Bob Krakoff announces he's leaving Advanstar Communications and then, in front of a crowd at the SISO Executive Summit in mid-August, his friend Lew Shomer lets the cat out of the bag that Jim Bracken is retiring from VNU Expositions.

When asked about it later by a Tradeshow Week editor, Bracken said, "Well, yes, but not exactly."

So, TSW asked Bracken to explain ... in his own words ...

"Well, here it is, retirement time once again. In 1983, I said goodbye to the Marine Corps after 26 years that passed in a flash. Now I intend to step down from the chairmanship of VNU Expo this fall, 21 years from my first retirement.

"Why? It is difficult to say I want to travel, since I have done so much of that over all these years.

"It's not that my wife is asking me to, since she works in a library and has no intention of giving that up.

"It's not that Bob Krakoff and Tom Kemp have set the example and impressed us all with their excitement about trying something new ... or is it?

"I wonder if my Marine uniforms still fit."