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neck of the woods | prof ile

Q - WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT THE SOUTHERN PART OF
OREGON?
MICHAEL – My wife and I had been traveling for about six months,
trying to decide where we were going to live. Someplace on the West
Coast, maybe Eureka. So, we drove to the Rogue Valley the end of
October to spend the night. “Pretty nice.” We got up the next day, drove
to Eureka, and it was 50 degrees and foggy with 30% unemployment.
“Let’s look at Medford again.” I love the beauty of the Rogue River
Valley. You can actually forget that when you’re living here, but then
you realize…

STUART – …you realize this is a very pleasant place to live. Years
ago, I was driving up I-5 for a meeting in Grants Pass, when it sud-
denly struck me, “in most of the country, this would be a national park!”
Compared to big urban areas, life is easy, yet it is big enough. There
were typesetters in town. When we were shipping photomechanical
separates, great big heavy packages, we had an airport and shipping
companies. You could get stuff sent out quickly if you had to.

Q - DO YOU FIND MAPS LURE YOU LIKE, “HEY, THERE’S A
PLACE HERE I’D LIKE TO GO.”?
MICHAEL - I find its sort of the reverse. You’ve been some place and
then you can actually go there again while you’re sitting in a chair look-
ing at our maps.

STUART - A lot of early appreciation of our maps were from pilots,
who would tell us, “For the first time, a map that shows what I’ve been
seeing from the air.” The combination of elevation colors and shading
makes sense of the landforms. The Commerce Department puts out
aeronautical charts covered in aeronautical information and printed in
strange colors suited to viewing in a cockpit at night. Essential, but
unbeautiful. At home, with a drink in your hand, you’ll ponder one of
our maps. “Oh, yeah. I remember flying over that.”

Q - WHAT DO YOU SEE IN THE FUTURE FOR RAVEN MAPS?
WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON?

STUART – My age is on the horizon. (Laughter). Technology has
changed everything in the world of maps. Everybody’s got a map on
their phone, so people don’t have printed maps like they used to.
Anyone can find a location or a bit of information, anytime, anyplace.
But, are they suited to conveying the big picture in a memorable way?
Raven Maps do that. Technology makes it possible to print on-demand
so we can maintain a growing list of titles without going broke on
inventory costs.

MICHAEL - It is pretty remarkable. When we started 35 years ago
our commerce was all postage stamps, envelopes, and checks, and then
the 800-number crept in, and then credit cards, and now the Internet.

STUART - We used to speculate about what percentage of people
would ever order online? Maybe 10% would…we didn’t really see that
one coming.

46 www.southernoregonmagazine.com | summer 2020