Who we are

Donald E.L. Johnson, MBA

Chairman and CEO of The Business Word

RealDonJohnson on twitter.com and Facebook.com.

Don has more than 40 years of experience in business publishing. He co-founded The Business Word in 1986. He is the former owner and publisher of TWINS™ Magazine, the www.twinsmagazine.com message board and the Twins™ magazine online store. 

He is the former editor in chief and publisher of Health Care Strategic Management, Hospital Materials Management, Health Care Advertising Review, Profiles in Healthcare Marketing, Financial Advertising Review and Health Industry Today.

The Business Word developed newsletters and custom publications for major corporations, database owners, consultants and other clients. Don is available to write blogs, client newsletters and special reports and to administer and moderate message boards.

Between 1976 and 1986 Don was editor of Modern Healthcare magazine and its always conservative editorial writer. As its top editor, Don helped build Modern Healthcare, a Crain Communications Inc. publication, into the hospital industry’s leading business magazine and one of the top 280 magazines in the country.

At Modern Healthcare, Don wrote and edited numerous articles on the hospital business and health care marketing, finance, architecture, law, politics and management.

In the early 1980s, Don served on the executive committee of the since closed Augustana Hospital’s board of directors and on the advisory board of an integrated health care delivery system in Chicago.

And he has spoken at hospitals’ board retreats, seminars and health care industry conferences.

Under a contrtact with its owner, Don was publisher of Lamaze Parents’ Magazine during 1989 and 1990.

In addition to health care, Don has covered architecture, auto makers, banking, marketing, commodity futures and economics, materials management and distribution, transportation, law, computers and agribusiness.

Don began his career in 1964 as a staff writer in the Chicago Bureau of The Wall Street Journal and has worked as a business reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, New York Journal of Commerce, American Metal Market and Metalworking News. Don is available for consulting and speaking engagements and can be reached at 303-761-5911.

Susan J. Alt, CPCU, ARM

Retired President of The Business Word Inc.
    Water color painter

Susan is a Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter and Associate in Risk

      Management. She co-founded The Business Word in 1986. Susan is the former editor of TWINS Magazine, 
      Business Insurance, 
      Hospital Materials Management, Health Industry Today and several
      single-sponsored publications, including the Managed Care Digest.
      She has a finance degree and extensive experience in editorial consulting
      and management.
   

During her career as a business owner, marketing consultant and business journalist, Susan planned and supervised the designs and redesigns of several magazines and newsletters.

She is a trained artist and illustrator and has extensive experience in publication design and production management as well as in strategic planning and publishing.

Susan is the former chairwoman of The Alliance and its Colorado Health Insurance Program, which was created by the Colorado General Assembly as a health insurance buyers' cooperative for small employers.

Susan began her career in 1969 as a reporter for Home Furnishings Daily and has reported for Women’s Wear Daily, Daily News Record and Supermarket News. She can be reached at 303-761-5911.