It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday and 24-year-old Christopher Corrado of Arlington Heights is hunched over his computer screen, scrolling files and immersing himself in the latest on osteoporosis, retirement community living and long-distance grandparenting.
Living trusts versus wills. Triathlon competitions at 60. Country-western line dancing classes at the local senior citizens center.
He can’t get enough of the stuff.
While most of his peers are struggling to get their foot in the door and start climbing the ladder of corporate America, this recent college graduate is holed up in the garage of his family home, setting up a small magazine operation he hopes will become the voice and, more significantly, the heart and soul of the northwest suburbs’ senior citizen population.
Last spring, just months after he received a master’s degree in advertising from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Corrado launched Fifty & Better Magazine (For People Fifty Plus Years Young) on $2,000, money he borrowed from his dad, David.
To support himself, he worked nights as a bartender. Even now he does free-lance marketing work for a medical client, giving him a paycheck until he’s able to pay himself a salary.
Though the magazine’s 17,000 circulation just reaches the Arlington Heights area right now, Corrado has bigger plans.
As founder/publisher/editor/advertising salesman/layout and design staff/typist and production director of Fifty & Better, Corrado wears many hats.
But he’s quite precise about his mission: He wants to reinvigorate the image of a generation three decades removed from his own and “pack some zest and some fun into their lives,” he says. He hates stereotypes of the elderly.
He’s also determined to increase awareness of all the not-for-profit and social service agencies available locally to help the older population.
“I grew up with my mom’s mom living with us and my dad’s mom real nearby, and I guess I gained a great deal of respect for the elderly early on,” says Corrado, whose only previous publication experience was a one-year internship during grad school at McGraw-Hill’s Engineering News Record in Milwaukee.
“Our house was always filled with my grandma’s friends, and I found most of them to be very fun and interesting. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to try something on my own before working for anyone else. So I brainstormed about what was really needed here in Arlington Heights, and I didn’t have to look very far. I decided I really wanted to develop something for the seniors that would cater to them and make their lives a little more interesting.”
With the help of his maternal grandmother Vera Jannotta, 85, Corrado formed focus groups, made up of 30 to 40 of Grandma’s friends and other interested senior citizens. He held the sessions in his family’s living room.
The group members all told him the same thing: Be light, amusing, upbeat and informative.
“My philosophy with this has always been to never assume what these seniors want, but to ask them and to give them what they want, not what I think they do,” Corrado says.
Reader reaction has been positive. “We were all thrilled to see it come out,” says Magdalena Nuss, 83, of Arlington Heights, who was introduced to the magazine by friends at Park Place Senior Center in Arlington Heights. “It’s really informative and very helpful.”
Adds Karen Hansen, director for Park Place Senior Center: “He’s a young man who has really done his homework and found a niche. I have to be careful in my position and not endorse any for-profit operations, but he really is putting a lot of enthusiasm and passion into this. He works very well with the elderly, and they seem to really like it.”
Kudos also come, of course, from Grandma Vera, who serves as chief editorial content critic (no story is published unless “it gets Grandma’s OK,” Corrado says).
“We love it,” Jannotta says. “It’s wonderful. Chris really has a way about him in being around all of us. We’re all really proud of what he’s done.”
Younger friends are impressed, too. Jim Thompson, 35, of Arlington Heights who has known Corrado all his life, says, “You have to be a dreamer to do what Chris has done. But I’ve got to give him credit. … He could have easily taken the route that most kids his age do and get the job downtown. But I really admire him for going out on his own, and I think that with with the type of personlity he has and the drive that he will make a success.”
In the 200-square-foot, concrete-floored editorial/advertising/circulation headquarters he and his father renovated, Corrado edits and publishes the 30-page bimonthly tribute to his hometown’s over-50 population.
So far, the free publication, which he produces on an IBM computer and sends to a local printer to make copies, targets just Arlington Heights. Corrado plans similar publications possibly in Palatine, Mt. Prospect and other neighboring communities.
After knocking on doors throughout the Arlington Heights business community to sell advertisements, Corrado got to work developing the editorial content. The first three issues are chock full of what this neophyte publisher considers short, upbeat and “hopeful” glimpses of life in the senior fast lane. Subjects have ranged from the senior citizen athletic population and getting the body ready for sports to cultivating relationships with grandchildren when they live across the country, and the socializing benefits of a retirement community.
What makes the magazine unique, Corrado says, is that he has tapped the talents of the community. Most of the magazine’s stable of about a dozen free-lance writers, all hand-picked by Corrado, are among the 50-plus crowd. They come from diverse backgrounds: a retired school principal, a 79-year-old cartoonist, a hospital dietitian. Others are professionals from northwest suburban senior social service agencies who offer their expertise to readers.
So far, Corrado has convinced most of his writers to contribute their talents free-the thrill of seeing their words in print, some of them say. But flat fees ranging from $25 to $75 soon will become standard for all Fifty & Better writers, Corrado says.
Joyce Skurla, director of the Network 50 Jobs for Seniors program in Mt. Prospect, is a regular contributor on subjects about senior employment. “I and most of the seniors I’ve talked to are real impressed with his energy and the wonderful job he’s done,” Skurla says. “I’m also impressed by his business acumen. There’s certainly a need for the information he’s providing, and he’s doing a good job demonstrating that. It’s also fun for frustrated writers like me to get a chance to have something published.”
Though there is nothing new about publications targeted to seniors, Corrado hopes Fifty & Better will overcome the stereotypes that come with aging and offer a fresh perspective on the subject.
“We’re definitely not here to dwell on death, health concerns and diseases,” Corrado says. “Who wants to hear anymore about the problems of getting older? We believe there is never enough humor, and that there is a strong need for a publication to cover some of the exciting possibilities for that generation.”
That strategy seems to be paying off.
Since he founded the publication last August and debuted the premier issue in April, Corrado has signed on an impressive list of more than 20 local advertisers, including Arlington International Racecourse, Par-A-Dice Riverboat Casino in East Peoria, Paine Webber in Oakbrook Terrace, Lutheran Home and Services in Arlington Heights and Lattof Chevrolet/GEO.
Currently, ad revenues generate about $7,000 a month, he says. He distributes the publication free through a direct-mail circulation of 14,000 Arlington Heights residents. (He hopes to charge $1.50 per issue.) He estimates that another 3,000 seniors and area residents read the magazine at his other distribution spots, the Park Place Senior Center and Arlington Heights Memorial Library.
Nonetheless, Corrado and even his strongest supporters say he has a tough road ahead of him.
“The hardest problem he’s got is his youth,” says Warren Lattof, 60, owner of Lattof Chevrolet/GEO in Arlington Heights, whose full-page ad appears inside the back cover of the premier and subsequent issues and who has pledged to continue advertising. “He’s got an awful big mountain to climb, because of his youth. I remember when I first started out here in my 20s. It is a tough road to try to convince others that you know what you are doing at that age. But I’m very impressed with what he’s done so far. He’s clearly a very nice, bright, clean young man.
“We’ve received a spectacular response from our advertisement, which gives me a pretty good idea his magazine is working. He seems to have found the right niche and a very receptive audience.”
Though he sees the potential as “enormous,” Corrado, who purposefully keeps his photo out of the editor’s page in the magazine because he believes some seniors would “find it hard to take,” is cautiously optimistic and taking one day at a time.
“From the first, it seemed like a win-win situation,” Corrado says. “As long as I could get the businesses to advertise, everybody wins: the not-for-profit organizations who get a forum to write about their programs and the seniors who can use those programs and their advice.
“But I’m not naive, and I realize there is a high failure rate for magazines like mine. It’s also very humiliating sometimes to go door to door trying to sell ads.
“But overcoming that rejection is the reality of all business and the challenge. That’s where my youth and energy can be my asset. My biggest frustration is that I don’t have a lot of experience in journalism, and I have a lot to learn. I lost the design of the first two issues on my computer and had to start from scratch. And I work around the clock. But I want to make it happen, despite the challenges.”
