Colin Holland, Noted Tech Journalist, Dies at 59
Holland’s 35-year career in the business-to-business press was capped with his stint at EE Times publisher UBM Tech, which he joined full time in 2008. His initial responsibilities revolved around Embedded and the DesignLines. In 2011, Holland became content director for the ARM TechCon conference. Early last year, DesignCon and the DESIGN West and East conferences were added to his charter. Holland had told colleagues he considered his work on those events to be the most exciting post he’d ever held.
“In his most recent role as Content Director for our events, Colin had an extraordinary impact on our portfolio of conferences,” said Kathy Astromoff, CEO of UBM Tech, Electronics. “His ability to intuit what engineers need to know was unmatched. More importantly, his many friends and colleagues at UBM – some of whom go back 30 years with Colin – will sorely miss his energy and ironic humor.”
Colin Holland at ARM TechCon in October, 2011, in Santa Clara, Calif.
Holland was one of a generation of British-born business-to-business journalists who built upon science educations to facilitate communications between industry and engineering professionals about the technology and business of electronics. His wide-ranging experience included stints at the UK publications Electronic Technology, Electronic Engineering, What’s New In Electronics (WNIE), and Electronics Times.
As print gave way to the Web in the early 2000s, he served as online editor-in-chief for Embedded Systems Engineering and editor of Embedded Systems Europe.
Holland came back into the UBM orbit in 2006 when he was tapped for a freelance assignment to help start EE Times Europe.
“I knew Colin for a long time as we worked on competing print publications in the UK where I quickly learned to respect his integrity and reporting style,” said UBM Tech CEO Paul Miller. “I was delighted to have the chance to work with him on the same team when we launched EE Times in Europe and found that we had a great deal in common.
“We quickly became more than boss and employee and would spend much of our time together sharing our mutual passion for English lower league soccer,” Miller said. “For me, Colin’s support for Charlton Athletic said a lot about him as a person. Loyal, supporting his soccer team and his work team with a passion and commitment that went beyond the call of duty, he did not put on, nor suffer, airs and graces and no matter how tough the going got, Colin was always there cheering on the team and bringing a sense of authenticity, reality – and a little levity – to situations that would have crushed many of us. Colin was just a great guy; honest, funny and caring.”
Early interest in science
Colin Robert Holland was born in Weymouth, England on July 22, 1953. He attended The Hardye School in Dorchester and went on to Plymouth Polytechnic where he graduated in 1976 with a B.Sc. in Physical Sciences.
Even before he became a journalist, Holland had gained experience as an organizer serving his college in the southwest of England in a paid position where we was responsible for a student newspaper, arranged publicity and helped organize pop music acts to entertain the students. He did this for a year after his own graduation in 1976.
In 1977, when he moved to London to join Electronic Technology, the publication of the Society of Electronic & Radio Technicians, as an assistant editor, he was putting those skills to work. Still only in his mid-20s Holland was editing the monthly members’ magazine as well as helping organize technical conferences on microprocessor testing, on writing technical documentation, on consumer electronics and other topics. The breadth and unstinting nature of his involvement was something that would mark his career.
Holland handing out a coveted Best in Show Award at ARM TechCon 2011.
In 1982, after a brief period as production editor on The Accountant magazine, Holland joined the publishing house of Morgan Grampian in Woolwich, southeast London, as production editor for a U.K. monthly technical magazine called Electronic Engineering under its editor-in-chief Ron Neale.
These were the glory years of controlled circulation publishing with monthly issues often in excess of 200 pages and put together by a staff of just three or four editors with secretarial support. Neale recalls that Holland was organized, diligent and multi-talented. Holland was the one team member who could turn his hand to any and all aspects of what was a complex process of turning typewritten copy into a perfect-bound magazine that was distributed to electronic engineers across the U.K.
It was at this time that Holland applied his passion for sports to supporting Charlton Athletic Football Club, his local soccer team. Holland never had the physique of an athlete but he came from a sporting family. His father had played soccer as goalkeeper for Weymouth and for the county of Dorset as an amateur and was also a wicketkeeper at cricket. Holland loved most sports and was no fair-weather fan. As a season-ticket holder he would support Charlton at almost every game throughout the season from August to May. Alternate weekends were often marked by marathon rail trips across England to away games and soccer was a source of much of his social life. At times he combined his work skills with his hobby, editing a fan’s magazine (fanzine) called Valiants Viewpoint.
Over 18 years – as Morgan Grampian evolved to become Miller Freeman – Holland helped launch the U.K. “product book” What’s New In Electronics (WNIE), then served as products and distribution editor on the weekly U.K. newspaper Electronics Times before taking on the editorship of WNIE in March 1997, a task he performed for three years.
But times were changing. Miller Freeman moved from Woolwich where Holland had established himself in an apartment on Shooters Hill and so he took the opportunity to try his hand as a free-lance. During the period 2001 to 2008 he undertook numerous assignments as well as being the online editor for Embedded Systems Engineering and editor of Embedded Systems Europe.
In 2006 Holland, while still working on a freelance basis, was called upon to help launch EE Times Europe in print and online and he again thrived as an organizational and production lynchpin, this time for what was a pan-European editorial team that was linked by email and online chat-rooms. Many of the operational systems that launched the publication were devised by Holland during the frequent visits he made to the publication’s base in Brussels, Belgium, during the startup phase.
The EE Times Europe experience and his editorial direction of Embedded Systems Europe ultimately evolved into his full-time position at UBM Tech, culminating in his conference-program leadership.
“When we were struggling to fill a leadership role for our Design West conference in late 2011,” UBM Tech CEO Miller said. “Colin simply stepped up and saved the day. He took to traveling the 6000 miles to San Francisco in true Colin style. He was concerned at the expense so he booked ‘Fly Drive’ vacation packages spurning the higher priced hotels for local motels and, boy, did he deliver! Despite the workload, every time Colin came to San Francisco he would bring British candy for the team and always leave me a magazine or book on soccer when he left. I’ve been in this industry for over 25 years and I would put Colin at the very top in terms of people I have known and worked with – I will simply miss him very much. He was truly a class act.”
Notwithstanding his heavy technical bent, Holland was also known as a sociable person. Karen Field, UBM Tech senior vice president, content for electronics, said he had: “an enthusiasm, engagement, and humor that were evident to everyone he came in contact with.”
Holland is survived by brothers Tony and Brian and their families, as well as extensive network of friends and contacts made through work and his love of sport.
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