Former Devon Resident Remembered as Longtime Publishing-Industry Innovator
Robert Craven Sr., formerly of Devon, a longtime publishing-industry innovator and former owner of Philadelphia-based F.A. Davis publishing company, has died aged 100, writes Gary Miles for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Craven, who was also Navy pilot, became president of F.A. Davis in 1960 and steered it to become one of the most successful family-owned publishing companies in the country.
While other publishers closed, merged, or sold out during rocky times in the 1970s and 1980s, Craven targeted new markets in the health sciences and ensured to retain independent ownership for the founder’s descendants.
He was a founding member of the American Medical Publishers’ Association as well as its two-time president, a group executive for the International Publishers Association, and an Association of American Publishers board member.
“He was an ambassador for publishing,” said his son Robert Jr. “There would be no legacy without him.”
Craven was also an author. He self-published books surrounding the history of the Davis company and his family history.
Read more about Robert Craven in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
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