Christian Retailing

Dan Rich announces retirement after 40 years in publishing Print Email
Written by Christine D. Johnson   
Thursday, 16 October 2014 12:55 PM America/New_York

DanRich-webDavid C Cook Chief Publishing Officer Dan Rich will retire from the publishing industry at the end of May 2015.

Rich, who has been at David C Cook for the last eight years, has spent 40 years in Christian publishing. He served as founding publisher at NavPress; president and founding publisher at WaterBrook Press; president and publisher at Questar (later Multnomah Publishers); senior vice president at Word Publishing; senior vice president of development and communications at the Navigators; and vice president at Thomas Nelson Publishers.

In addition to founding NavPress and WaterBrook, he was a founding member of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association and the founding publisher of Discipleship Journal.

David C Cook CEO Cris Doornbos affirms Rich’s remarkable publishing career.

“In my first 20 years in the publishing industry, I knew of Dan Rich only by his outstanding reputation. When I took over as CEO at David C Cook nine years ago, I called in Dan to revitalize our book-publishing division. He successfully did so by strategically reducing the number of books we published each year and seeking out fresh authors for today’s reader. Dan turned the book division into a thriving and lucrative department. Dan’s other task was to develop a new curriculum that would move the church forward. As a result, the TRU curriculum was successfully launched in 2009.”

Doornbos added: “I hate the word retirement. Instead I think of Dan as being reassigned. We wish him and Scharlotte all the best in what the Lord has for them in the future.”

Rich reflected on his career in publishing.

“I believe that the call on my life to be in the publishing industry has been a call from the Lord,” Rich said. “I also believe in the message of Ephesians 4 that we are all called to build up others in faith as our faith grows. In other words, I know that God’s call is bigger than my 40-plus years in this career. My wife, Scharlotte, and I are looking forward to spending more time with our five grandchildren and seeing where God leads us next.”