Vertical wins award from rotorcraft peers

Trade publishing is often a way for ambitious individuals to get into the business, serving a specialized audience in a highly focussed way. There are few better examples of this than Kitchener-based Vertical magazine, run by a husband and wife team, Linda and Mike Reyno.

The magazine is about the helicopter business and Mike, a photojournalist, provides much of the spectacular photography, and Linda handles the sales and marketing. The result is a handsome publication, apparently very popular in its industry; the evidence is that it has won a "Salute to Excellence" award from Helicopter Association International (HAI), an international association representing 2,500 individuals and companies in the helicopter industry in 73 nations.

Vertical, which the Reynos launched in 2002 from a home office, covers almost every sector of the commercial rotorcraft industry; the magazine uses professional freelance writers and Mike's aerial photography to cover everything from flying along the East Coast of Canada, to heli-logging in Northern California, to seismic operations in Alberta, to fighting fires in Northern Ontario. MHM Publishing Inc., the company that publishes Vertical, l also has a full-time staff of five people.

The HAI award will be made in March at a conference in Orlando, Florida.