Harford Business Ledger

HBL marks twenty years serving Harford’s business community

The first edition of the Harford Business Ledger.

In October 1989, the construction of the Festival at Bel Air Shopping Center was just about completed. There was talk about development of a “campus like, high tech industrial park” on 118 acres of surplus Maryland Transportation Authority land at the I-95/Rt. 22 interchange in Aberdeen.

Harford County’s unemployment (for September) was 4.2 percent, up from August’s 4 percent jobless rate but below the 4.6 percent rate for September 1988.

In October 1989, the Harford Business Ledger, a monthly business-to-business newspaper, began publication.

The Ledger was founded by Philip K. Smith, who had worked in the advertising department of The Aegis from 1966 to 1986. Smith decided the county’s business community was ready to support a business to business newspaper.

“Business is the backbone of any dynamic community,” began an editorial on the front page of the inaugural edition.
“We at the Harford Business Ledger recognize that and know Harford County’s continuing growth and leadership in the state is largely due to the support you, the local businessman and businesswoman, offer.

From the florist in Aberdeen to the restaurateur in Havre de Grace to the car dealer in Bel Air, you have made the difference. Harford could not be the state’s premier spot of development without you.

Our purpose is to bring you news and information you can use to keep up with your neighbors, enhance your services and expand you client base.”

A month after the newspaper began publication, Robert Carll, a former Aegis adman, came onboard as co-publisher. In 1993, Smith and Carll sold the Ledger to Chesapeake Publishing in Elkton. The newspaper’s offices moved from Lee Street in Bel Air to W. Bel Air Avenue in Aberdeen.

Smith and Carll remained on as co-publishers. Carll left in 1997. Smith continued with the newspaper, leaving the month it celebrated its tenth anniversary. He is now a financial advisor in Bel Air.

Chesapeake Publishing sold the Harford Business Ledger to Homestead Publishing in September 2002. “It’s an excellent newspaper and does a terrific job covering the local business community,” said John D. Worthington, Homestead Vice President and publisher of The Aegis.

The Ledger moved to Havre de Grace, sharing office space in a building on St. John Street with The Record, the city’s weekly newspaper, also owned, like The Aegis, by Homestead. In December 2008, the Havre de Grace office was closed and the Ledger was back in Bel Air, this time in The Aegis building on Hays Street.

The look and page size of the Ledger have changed over the years and efforts made to establish it on the Internet. With the hiring of Mary Paramore as associate editor in February 2008 efforts began to upgrade the site. Paramore and former marketing manager Eric Gale developed a more interactive site, updated weekly with news stories, community announcements, press releases and other information.

Paramore began her writing career in public relations, working with agencies, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the University of the Virgin Islands before becoming a military spouse. With many moves, she has had many jobs, and her experiences in foodservice, administrative support, educational marketing, childcare and graphic design has been useful in her work for HBL.

Editor Jack McLaughlin has been with the newspaper since November 1997, first as a staff writer and, for the past four years, as editor. He started in community newspapers in 1970 with the Harford Democrat, a now defunct weekly in Aberdeen, and worked as a reporter and an editor at The Aegis from 1972 to1995.

“I was out of the newspaper business for a couple of years, working in real estate, as a bookstore cashier, I was even one of those research survey takers who pounce on the unsuspecting in malls and shopping centers,” McLaughlin said.

He said “I’d written a couple of articles for small publications but wasn’t sure about getting get back into journalism until Phil (Smith) gave me a call about doing some things for the Ledger.”

“It was interesting to work primarily with the business community and I came back to newspapering with a different perspective because of my own work experiences, ” he said. “I’ve always agreed with the credo of the Ledger’s founder that the publication’s business is to help Harford County businesses do business.”

“It’s interesting to work now, as in the old Chinese curse, ‘May you live in interesting times,’ ” said the life long Harford resident. “What ever the problems in the newspaper industry, there will always be local newspapers because they carry the kind of news that won’t be found elsewhere. I’m not making any predictions whether some where down the road that local newspaper will be something you pick up off your porch or punch up on your computer,” McLaughlin said.

McLaughlin succeeded Don Dohler, who served two stints as HBL editor. The first was from 1994 through 1996; the second from mid 2001 to late 2005 when he became editor of a Baltimore County weekly newspaper he had once owned. Dohler was hired in 1986 by Shield Press, which became part of Homestead Publishing, to edit The Times in Perry Hall. He eventually bought the paper, renaming it the Times Herald.

“One of the great things that made the Harford Business Ledger such an attractive acquisition was the staff,” said Worthington, adding, “The paper was founded and has been edited by former Homestead employees, and the Ledger mirrors other Homestead papers when it comes to laser like focus on local news.”