Market Memo

Qualified Remodeler magazine mourns the passing of its founder David Sauer. David founded QR in 1975 and sold it to a pre-cursor company that became Cygnus Business Media in 1996.

Today his many friends in the remodeling industry shared the following e-mail about his life and his contribution to the remodeling industry.

It was written by Linda Shchoffman.
 

My Dear Friends:
 

It is with great personal sadness that I tell you that we heard today that David Sauer, Founding Editor & Publisher of Qualified Remodeler Magazine, and dear friend and colleague of so many of us, has died.  Dave died of a heart attack, in his sleep on June 17, 2007.
 

As so many of us know, David Sauer was one of the best friends the Remodeling Industry has ever had. We owe him a debt that many of us who were pioneers in the profession, do not, even today, completely understand. He believed in us and in the power we had to influence the economy of the United States; he led us to understand that we are professionals, that we deserve to be treated as such, by our customers…but more importantly, by ourselves, if we expect to receive the respect we deserve, that we must demand the same from ourselves and of others.
 

David  Sauer was the owner and chief champion of Western Remodeling Conference, as he knew, instinctively, that the professional & profit centers of the industry had moved to the West. I was privileged to work with him for several years, as Conference Manager, and I learned much from him. Neil Kelly, Les Cunningham, Martha Kerr, & Dave Love, among others, joined forces in helping Contractors & Suppliers in the Western USA to realize that they were also pioneers and leaders in this new industry that had the power to transform the country.
 

When Dave founded QR, remodeling was pretty much undiscovered territory and many of us in the industry were still inexperienced and unaware of its potential. But, always, Dave had an unerring sense of the marketplace and how the members of the remodeling profession could transform ignored and blighted places into inspired and revitalized homes. And he never hesitiated to share his ideas, no matter who might scoff or disagree. He turned out to be right much of the time.
 

The loss of such a champion of our profession is indeed a great one. The creation of NARI, a merger of the National Home Improvement Council with the National Remodelers Association, in fact, would have never occurred if it were not for Dave Sauer.  Through sheer force of his personality and his journalistic skills, he persuaded a bunch of remodeling contractors and manufacturers to put aside their differences and their self interest in order to form an organization that would define the future of the industry.
 

Arrangements are being made by Donnellan Funeral Home, 10045 Skokie
Blvd, Skokie, IL 60077.  A wake will be held from 3-9 PM on Tuesday, June 19. Funeral Mass will be June 20 at 1:00 PM at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Winnetka, IL.
 

Warm Regards,
Linda Schoffman

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Market Memo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.