Ray Shaw, ACBJ Chairman, Dies

American City Business Journals chairman Ray Shaw died early Sunday morning from complications following a bee sting. He was 75. Shaw joined ACBJ in 1989 after taking early retirement as president of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal. In his 20 years as chairman and chief executive of ACBJ, the company moved its headquarters from Kansas City to Charlotte, N.C., doubled the number of weekly business journals it publishes and expanded into magazines and other media. Along the way, employment grew from about 850 people to more than 1,900.

On a somber Monday morning in January of 2007, Washington Business Journal publisher Alex Orfinger picked up the phone and called his boss, American City Business Journals Chairman Ray Shaw, with a piece of devastating news. John McCalla, the paper’s 38-year-old editor, had just been found dead, the unexpected victim of heart disease.

American City Business Journals, the Charlotte-based company that is taking over Portfolio.com, has a new boss--Whitney Shaw, one of the sons of Ray Shaw, the ACBJ CEO who died unexpectedly July 19. The full release from S.I. Newhouse Jr., chairman of Advance Publication:

Ray Shaw, chairman of American City Business Journals, left behind a lot of admirers when he died on July 19. Here, remembrances from some of his friends and colleagues.  

Portfolio.com will migrate to a new home as part of Charlotte-based American City Business Journals Inc.'s bizjournals, effective in July. Portfolio and American City Business Journals made the announcement Wednesday. Bizjournals will oversee the editorial and business sides of the site. The Portfolio.com editorial team and sales staff will be based in New York.

The winners of American City Business Journals' Social Madness challenge get to designate a $7,500 donation to a charity of their choice.

Portfolio.com will migrate to a new home as part of Charlotte-based American City Business Journals Inc.'s bizjournals, effective in July.

ACBJ, which operates Portfolio.com, has a new boss—a son of Ray Shaw, who died July 19.