Karin E. Wagner, who welcomed challenges whether in her work as an executive editor with a textbook publisher or in her favorite pastimes of sailboat racing and growing orchids, died of breast cancer Sunday, June 8, in her Chicago home.
“Karin was an inspiring leader, intelligent, hard-working and incredibly determined,” said Chris Hoag, her friend and boss at New Jersey-based Prentice Hall, an educational textbook publisher. Ms. Wagner worked in the company’s Glenview office.
“She always led by example, doing whatever it took to get a job done and inspiring others to do the same. She made a huge impact here,” Hoag said.
Ms. Wagner, 41, began her career in textbook publishing in the late 1980s with HarperCollins as a field sales representative in the Milwaukee office, then a few years later took an editorial position in the Chicago branch. She joined Prentice in 1996 as a senior editor of developmental math textbooks and three years later became that department’s executive editor.
“The curriculum of developmental math is basically remedial algebra at the college level for students who had little success in high school mathematics and need to have math to move on and get a degree,” Hoag said. “As executive editor, Karin would find authors with talent in teaching this type of course, sign them to write a textbook, then work with them to develop, market and sell the books at four-year and community colleges. Her books were extremely successful for the company. She really made a difference and inspired her authors to do more than they had done before.”
In 1997, she was named the company’s editor of the year.
“She enjoyed doing all the various things from helping to design the cover of the textbooks to meeting with professors to talk about the books and everything in between,” said her husband, Boyd V. Rice.
A blind date in 1992 brought the couple together.
“We just hit it off,” said her husband. “She was a beautiful woman, elegant and graceful.”
Born in Elkhart, Ind., Ms. Wagner was raised in Ann Arbor, Mich., where she received a degree in German from the University of Michigan in 1985.
She grew to love the outdoors during childhood summers at the family cottage not far from Lake Michigan and a few years after marrying, she and her husband signed up for a sailing class at the Columbia Yacht Club in Chicago. They became regular crewmembers on racing sailboats including five years in the Race to Mackinac.
During the races, Ms. Wagner served as bowman, responsible for attaching and detaching the headsails as the wind shifted.
“She had to do that under all conditions,” said her husband, “when it can be anything from flat water to battling 4 feet high waves or the wind blowing at 20 knots.”
Ms. Wagner nurtured more than a dozen orchids in her home, many in the special garden window in the kitchen.
“She always loved those flowers and thought they were incredibly beautiful,” her husband said.
The daughter of a German immigrant, she also enjoyed traveling to Germany to visit with relatives.
Other survivors include a brother, Thomas; and her parents, Richard and Claire Wagner. Services have been held.
