Bylines Alumni Newsletter

Colvin fits the mold of trade press journalist

By Bradley Bond

Robert Bruce Colvin ('69 MA) loves the challenges journalism provides. "You have to continue to keep yourself up to date, informed," he said. "You have to try to get the story first, remain accurate to your best ability and be objective."

That much you'd expect from a School alum who landed reporting jobs at The Salt Lake Tribune and the Chicago Tribune in his first few years out of college. But that's not what he's talking about.

It's plastics. Modern Plastics International, to be exact.
The trade publication is the world's largest monthly magazine printed in English that deals with the plastics-processing field. It has a paid monthly circulation of 77,000 and total worldwide monthly readership of an estimated 337,600.

From his office in Germany, Colvin has covered all the beats Ð film and sheet, as well as pipe and window profile extrusion, recycling, European regulations, resin pricing, global trade and the field of additives for plastics.

He knows that few young reporters aspire to work for business publications, but Colvin enjoys the challenge of keeping up to speed in a technical field.

"I can specialize here on a subject that is constantly changing. For some people, plastics and plastics processing may not seem to be of interest, but with issues of weight reduction in products from cars to packaging, new developments are constantly being made that are of interest to our readers and important to the public," he said.

Then there's the scenery.

"This job allows you to do a lot of traveling, seeing a lot of interesting things. How many people working in offices can say they get to travel all over Europe and the Middle East in a year?"
Colvin's journalism career got a jump-start when, as an undergraduate in 1965 at the University of Redlands in California, he was awarded the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund internship in 1965. That took him to The Salt Lake Tribune, where he worked in various departments. Having gained some on-the-job experience, he attended graduate school at CU, and on graduation he received job offers from The Sun in Baltimore, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and UPI but settled on a reporting position at the Chicago Tribune, where he worked until 1975. At the Chicago Tribune he became a copy editor and then assistant education editor.

While the Chicago and Salt Lake City newspapers proved to be good experiences, he said the quickly changing assignments left him feeling scattered compared to his current job in the trade press.
Colvin left the Chicago Tribune 1975, intent on returning to college for a Ph.D. in journalism and mass communication, but he first needed to pass a language exam. In an effort to improve his German, he moved to Germany.

Colvin spent the next 10 years in Germany working in public relations for Carapetyan & Kraemer, dealing with investment goods. In 1994, he returned to reporting by joining Modern Plastics International at its Frankfurt office, first as assistant editor and now as an associate editor -Ð one of six editors the magazine has working for its publications abroad.
"Admittedly, I had to do some fast footwork to brush up on my chemistry and pretty much start from scratch on learning about mechanical engineering and equipment, but it certainly wasn't impossible."

In 1998, Modern Plastics took over Modern Mold & Tooling. Colvin also writes for that magazine, directed at mold making for the plastics industry.

Colvin attributed his success to the CU journalism program and the numerous connections presented to him by the faculty.
"The fact that each of the profs had newspaper, advertising and magazine experience instead of just theoretical knowledge was the key issue here," he said. "They were able to use their connections at various newspapers to get an introduction so you could at least have an interview and try to convince a newspaper or wire service of your value.

"I remember how Associate Professor John Mitchell, who had worked on newspapers before coming to the University of Colorado, prepped us on how to sell ourselves and what newspaper editors were looking for."

At CU, Colvin enjoyed the small classes and the interaction with professors. He said it wasn't until he got out of college that he realized how he had been provided the framework and background that were to become the basis for everything he went on to do.

Colvin encouraged students to improve on foreign language skills, which he didn't feel were emphasized while he was going to college.

"After 25 years (in Germany), I'm able to conduct interviews in either English or German, but if I were fluent in more languages, I could write my ticket for just about any overseas position on any publication," he said.