F.A. Davis Company is 125 years old. The power and endurance of small publishing house quality shall be
celebrated again. Would that be with record Taber's sales? Best-ever Drug Guide sales? And especially with
a new, all-weather pocket guide (RNotes) that has been printed and reprinted 6 times in 10 precocious
months? Yes, yes--125 times yes!
So light the candles and stand back. Somebody forgot the sugar in the cake mix? Doesn't matter. The cake
will taste sweet to me. If you have read this page before, you know that F.A. Davis Company is nothing if
not closely held and independent--and independence is no artificial sweetener. It is pure and natural and,
most of all, rare, leaving me to ponder the remarkable 125-year adventure to maintain this flavor.
The F.A. Davis Company's journey to remain independent has been navigated four different ways by four
different regimes spanning all 125 years. When F. A. Davis founded the company in 1879, the temptation to
sell out was desperately exceeded by the instinct to survive. This was an age when a venture capitalist
was usually nothing more than a reluctant sibling with some extra cash. Consequently, bankruptcy court
seldom found its debtors in the red ink floods of the recent dot-com disasters. For F.A. Davis Company,
no noose was good news as the company rebounded numerous times from bankruptcy reorganization.
It is widely believed that F. A. was eventually too preoccupied with promoting the west coast of
Florida to be entertaining the sell-off (or the build-up) of his fledgling company. Philadelphia, he knew,
was the hub of American medical teaching and practice, not Tarpon Springs, Florida, where his nagging
rheumatism was reduced to a topic of conversation. F.A. Davis, the company, stayed in Philadelphia
while F. A. Davis, the free-spirited entrepreneur, spent enough time in Florida to be credited with
the cofounding of St. Petersburg. If, say, J. P. Morgan, had called upon F. A. in the early years of
the company's existence (and was lucky enough to find him), the greeting would have been brief and
the verbal agreement of sale even quicker . . . sending F. A. home for a probable change of heart.
F. A., you see, became a devoted (Craven) family man upon his marriage to my Great Aunt Irene Craven,
because this family included a gaggle of her sisters, too. When the company was not in bankruptcy
court, it was the only stable investment he had, and she knew it.
When F. A. died in 1917, Irene, age 42, began a 43-year publishing career that ended the way it
started--with her as company president. She left her husband's Florida sand castles to those with
rheumatic disorders and set her remarkable regime on the strength of her over-the-shoulder observations.
Her ability to carry the company through the Great Depression and a number of bank receiverships only
galvanized the fierce pride she took in preserving the company's independence. The Taber's dictionary was
signed and cultivated under her watch and remains the company's flagship title today.
Did she ever have discussions with prospective buyers? Only with trusted ones . . . so there were none.
Many believed that F.A. Davis Company would be auction fodder when estate taxes would fillet the
company upon her death. The genius of her renowned frugality (she recycled paper when we had enough
trees) would ultimately fuel the legacy of the company's independence. The company's value at her death
was serendipitously appraised on the basis of the dividends she paid to the few stockholders there were
(all were employees and/or family). Because the company had not grown in many years, her Christmas card
became their dividend. The taxable value dropped well under book value, and in 1964, the year of her
death, her nephew Bob Craven Sr.'s regime as president AND owner began its stride.
As Bob Craven revitalized the company, the landscape of health science publishing was changing.
Ownership of our competitors went from fellow publishers who wanted to buy us a drink to corporate
publishers who wanted to buy us outright. Meanwhile, the selling price multiplied to unthinkable levels.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, thought F.A. Davis Company would sell, too. The lone exception happened
to be in charge. Bob Craven enjoyed what he was doing as much as he marveled at what he was hearing.
"Autonomy," the suitors cried, "will still be yours."
They were right, of course, because no deal was done!
The incoming free lunches from Holland and St. Louis and Canada and New York went home with nothing more
than a tentative date to lunch again and a few well-told Aunt Irene stories. They would have to expand their
bloated, yet ever-ravenous, publishing empires somewhere else.
Just as important, Bob Craven did in 1972 something that had not been done in the first 93 years. He
built a company succession plan. Perhaps he confided in the law of averages, which had remarkably spared
the company from Aunt Irene's decision to write her first will and testament at age 85.
My brother, Bruce (who is actively licensing our electronic content), and I are the beneficiaries of
the plan. That plan looks even better now when you assess the consolidation damage self-imposed on our
biggest competitors. From places where venerable icons of publishing greatness once stood, there remains
only a bureaucratic version of a shotgun wedding, devoid of autonomy, held loosely credible by a logo
whose reputation was built under former ownership. Ruined is the notion that size matters, but retained
has been their taste for high quality, albeit from the outside looking in. Their mission is clear: If
you can't beat them, buy them . . . and if they say they don't want to sell, don't believe them. Merger
brokers understand this philosophy very well so their persistence has made them excellent representatives.
My phone number may not be on their speed dial, it just seems that way. The tack, however, has changed.
Now they know better than to boast about the virtues of what would be the company's "new autonomy." That
could get in the way of some perfectly legitimate plans to play golf. And, if they let me win, they might
even hear a few more Aunt Irene stories.
Happy Birthday, F.A. Davis Company, for you are 125 years free and counting. . . . How sweet it is!
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Robert H. Craven, Jr.
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