Longtime Iowa biz reporter to retire at end of the year

Longtime Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette business journalist George C. Ford is retiring at the end of the year.

Michael Chevy Castranova writes, “George was working as business editor for the Rock Island Argus when massive technical snafus in 1984 got its people to ask The Gazette’s people if they could send stories to the computer here in Cedar Rapids. He was one of the people involved in sending stories and photos from one location to the other.

“Editors here must have noticed him. A job offer followed not long after.

“His mission became part of redoing The Gazette’s business coverage. That was when stocks and a few stories were tucked at the back of the sports section.

“‘It was believed only men paid attention to stocks,’ George notes with a shake of his head. ‘… The financial industry was changing, growing.

“‘We started a new Sunday (business) section,’ he says, adding, ‘‘Iowa Farmer Today’ started around the same time.’

“One Monday, after George was on the job as assistant financial editor for about all of three months, his editor told him he had a doctor’s appointment the next morning. When the editor didn’t show up on Tuesday, George telephoned the man’s home, to learn the man had been scheduled for heart surgery.

“The boss wasn’t going to back in the office soon, and George became interim financial editor for The Gazette.”

Read more here.