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Mark Maassen, BJ '80

What is your full-time job?
I'm the Director of Display Advertising at the Kansas City Star. I work in the areas of major retail accounts, national advertising, automotive (local car dealers) and our direct mail division.

Is this what you thought you might do in college?
I was an advertising major at Mizzou, but I thought I wanted to emphasize public relations. So I took some news classes as these were recommended as good preparation for this field. My beat was small college sports, including Central Methodist College and William Jewell College. I covered Columbia College basketball. My sports editor at the time, Randy Covitz, is now a top sports reporter at the Star.

How did the news courses help you?
Writing is the key to all thought processing. The news courses helped me to formulate my ideas, and they helped me in my sales presentations later in life. They also gave me an understanding on how the news side operates.

What did your career path to the Star look like?
After I graduated, I worked for the Wichita Falls (Texas) Times and Record News in advertising for a year and half. Then I felt a desire to get back to Missouri, so I wrote three letters -- one to the Springfield News-Leader, one to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and one to the Star. The Star hired me as a sales person in retail advertising.

Do you have any career regrets?
If I had to give an example of one regret, it would be when I was one year out of school. I was working in Wichita Falls, Texas, and I was offered the sports anchor position for the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts at a local station. The pay, though, was 33 percent less than I was making at the time so I passed. Looking back, I should have taken that chance and gotten the experience. What I didn't realize then is that I could have could have gone back to my original field of study if I didn't like being an anchor. Who knows, I could have been on ESPN today. The lesson is that you must have the attitude of taking a chance and trying something that you feel uncomfortable in.

You're now serving as a board member for the Columbia Missourian.
I've been on the board for a year and a half. My role is to advise the present Missourian staff on opportunities and possibilities that may exist from an outside prospective. All board members come from geographically different areas -- some of us are from Missouri, some from Florida, and the like. Work-wise, not all of us are news people as I am an advertising person.

What is the most interesting aspect of being a board member?
Realistically, it's to help the Missourian become as vibrant an information medium as it can be. As an advertising person, I want the Missourian to be profitable.

What advice you can give to current students in the School of Journalism?
Don't ever give up on pursuing your passion, be it news writing, advertising sales or photojournalism. The key thing in Journalism is that an opportunity will present itself at some time. I have a lot of friends I work with who do what they didn't study in school. I feel fortunate because for the last 25 years, I am doing exactly what I wanted to do when I graduated from Missouri.

What is your fondest memory from being in the Journalism School?
In my last semester, I had advertising sales class, which was considered a difficult class. I sold ads in an area near Parkade Plaza and had great success doing it. Prior to this experience, I knew newspapers were fun, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. With that experience, I was able to see success and knew it was what I exactly wanted to do.

What is your greatest professional accomplishment?
Staying at the Star for 24 years and working within that organization and feeling that I can contribute something every day. It's a great feeling of accomplishment.

What is one thing that would surprise people about you?
I am an avid whitewater river canoeist. I love to take trips to find the wildest river I can. The Big Piney in Arkansas and the Mulberry River in Arkansas are two of the more challenging rivers.

What did you want to be as a kid?
I wanted to be a major league baseball player, and then later I wanted to be a basketball coach or a sports writer. It wasn't until I got to Mizzou and crossed over to the "dark side" that I discovered that advertising is just as much fun sports writing.