It's hard to believe that ten years ago this month we produced our first issue of Financial Advisor. The past decade has been characterized by a mild recession, the worst attack against American civilians in history and what hopefully will turn out to be the worst recession of our lifetimes.

Whether it's a good thing or not, the people you work with are the people you spend much of your life with. In that, I have been extremely lucky. So it's time to thank them all.

When I first penned this note ten years ago, I commented that, after working with her for two months, Dorothy Hinchcliff had the nicest disposition of anyone I've ever worked with. I didn't know it at the time, but I've learned she also has one of the sharpest business minds I've ever met.

Ray Fazzi joined our editorial staff on Day Two and has written some of the best articles about this business I've ever edited. As we grew, we were lucky enough to have two gifted freelancers, Jeff Schlegel and Eric Rasmussen, accepted our offer to work full-time, while Sherri Scordo became survey editor.

But there are a lot of people behind the scenes and without them there wouldn't be any magazine. People like circulation director Susanna Marra, production manager Aimee Melli, controller Lori Chadwick, subscription manager Steve Kimball, marketing director Jennifer Rhatigan, and Web designer Keith Huryk.

Three years ago, we were fortunate enough to find an award-winning creative director, Laura Zavetz, and together with Jodie Battaglia and Merri Chapin, they produce one of the best-looking magazines anywhere.

On the business side, David Smith has managed an ad staff that dealt with challenges that have felled far bigger companies. Caren Paradise Kohl and Diane Rogala have overcome a tough business environment.

Two years ago, we struck pay dirt when we found two senior advertising professionals, Bill DiModugno and Andy Pedersen. You can see by the size of this issue, what Bill, Andy, Caren and Diane are doing. That wouldn't be possible if it weren't for advertising manager Dawn Zarcaro and her assistants, Linda Mantello and Marianne Busch.

Ten years ago, many Wall Street minds were questioning the future viability of print publishing. They still are, so permit me to question the future viability of Wall Street as well. Ten years from now, there will still be an information business and a financial services industry. What they will look like is anyone's guess.

But thanks to Dorothy, Keith and online advertising sales director Karen Burke, our electronic business is flourishing, so much so that we've added two sales professionals, Andie Goldfinger and Sandra Croce, in the last year.

One other person deserves mention, our CEO Charlie Stroller. When the U.S. economy went into a recession in late 2000 after we had published only three issues, he told me to relax, boasting that what he really excelled at was running companies with zero sales and even less in the way of cash.

Just suffice it to say that we are the only publishing company I know that has zero layoffs in the last decade.

Evan Simonoff, Editor-in-chief
E-mail me at [email protected] with your opinion.