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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
Guide book publisher
moves East -- from
West to SouthCalifornia-based Guest Informant, a publisher of in-room visitor guides and City Spin, an online guide to visitor destinations, is under new management.
The 66-year old company was purchased by Georgia-based Morris Communications, a privately owned company with newspaper publishing, outdoor advertising and broadcast media operations in the United States and Europe.
Purchased-induced changes are now beginning to roll downhill. The company's local sales force will remain in place, but a key executive is stepping down.
Anne Murata, serving as group publisher since June 2001 and recently promoted to national marketing manager, will leave the company on Dec. 31.
"They made me a couple offers I could easily refuse," Murata said.
Both involved relocating to the Los Angeles-area offices of Guest Informant.
She's done the L.A. thing, she said.
"The job to build an in-house agency would have been a wonderful challenge, but I have children in college here. I also have a husband here with a rather successful ad agency."
Anne and Mike Murata ran Murata Creative together for some 20 years and racked up numerous advertising awards before she joined Guest Informant.
With the exception of Christmas Day, she'll be working right up to New Year's Eve.
"There's a lot of stuff to do and not enough staff to do it," she said.
Once the stuff is done, she'll take some time off, consider a couple offers, think about finishing up an MBA and other options.
"I'm going to think and look for the right and perfect thing," she said.
Is Murata Creative the next big thing?
"I love my husband dearly but the answer is no, I'm not going back to Murata Creative. He's doing extremely well without me," she said.
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Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at: eengle@starbulletin.com