NEW YORK — The Direct Marketing Club of New York presented Silver Apple awards to seven DM professionals and one corporation Friday during a luncheon here at the Roosevelt Hotel.
Recipients spoke of their 25-plus-year careers in direct marketing and thanked many friends and colleagues who guided them through the years.
“You are the reason we have other classes of mail,” Silver Apple winner John R. Wargo, vice president of service and market development at the U.S. Postal Service, told the audience of direct marketers. “If it weren't for you, the postal service wouldn't exist.”
He went on to say that what in years past was referred to as junk mail has become a full-fledged economic engine.
In his acceptance speech on behalf of corporate Silver Apple winner Direct Media Inc., chairman David W. Florence expressed his gratitude on behalf of his firm and reminisced about the Direct Marketing Club of New York being the first industry club that he joined.
“I'm happy that the DMCNY has stayed autonomous all these years,” Florence said.
After telling a story about the encouragement a college professor gave him, award recipient Larry Kimmel, chairman/CEO of Grey Direct, urged attendees to nurture young industry talent.
“Let them know that they have talent and they will thank you,” said Kimmel, who then thanked attendees for the award.
This year's other Silver Apple recipients were Richard Goldsmith, president of The Horah Group; Christy Karl, database manager at CC3; Sue McNamara, director of the reseller division at SK&A Information Services; Mike Faulkner, senior vice president of segments and affiliates at the Direct Marketing Association and Neil Metviner, president, PB Direct, a division of Pitney Bowes Inc.
More than 150 Silver Apples have been given out since the award debuted in 1985.
Last year's honorees were Tony Ambrose, TAD Services Inc.; Reggie Brady, Reggie Brady Marketing Solutions; Bill Korn, MCS/CC3; Brian Kurtz, Boardroom Inc.; Joan Oppenheimer, Design Distributors Inc.; Donn Rappaport, American List Counsel; and Ray Roel, MRM Partners Worldwide. DM News was the Corporate Silver Apple honoree.
