Clapper Earning Applause in Second Act of Career

Marie Clapper had an accomplished first act in the media and publishing sector of the business world, leading a multi-million-dollar company in Illinois.

Her second act is being authored in the retail-centered world of Northwest Arkansas, and the script is just as intriguing.

Clapper, who will turn 72 on Nov. 21, is a key member of the executive team at Bentonville-based supplier development firm 8th & Walton.

Since the summer of 2013, she has worked full-time for her son, Jeff Clapper, a partner at 8th & Walton since 2011 and chief executive since 2013.

Marie Clapper is the company’s editorial director and producer of its flagship media product, “Saturday Morning Meeting,” a weekly television talk show concentrating on the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. community.

The job, she conceded, can be stressful, a far cry from the nonchalant life enjoyed by most retirees.

Clapper, though, is intrinsically youthful, viewing herself as vibrant and active.

And that attitude defines her professional career, too, where engagement and learning, she said, bring a level of satisfaction to each day’s work.

“Professional development really has no age limit; it’s blind to age,” Clapper said. “I like growing and being challenged. There’s a lot of pressure in this job, but I think sometimes the pressure keeps you young.”

 

Extensive Experience

Never in her wildest dreams did Marie Clapper expect to spend retirement working for her son.

“I will call her mostly ‘Marie’ when we’re at work,” Jeff Clapper joked. “Everyone here just sort of smiles about it.”

But Marie Clapper did, in fact, officially enter into retirement in 2006 when she and her husband, Lyle Clapper, sold the 55-year-old Clapper Publishing Co. to Amos Press Inc. of Sydney, Ohio.

At the time, Clapper Publishing, a niche consumer magazine publishing house headquartered in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, was a $12 million company, with its six how-to craft magazines ranging in circulation from 100,000 to 200,000.

Clapper’s experience in the media industry is extensive, having started as a writer for the magazines in 1976, and later working on the sales side of the company before becoming president and chief executive.

A leader in the field, Clapper once sat on the board of the Magazine Publishers of America (along with Christie Hefner and Martha Stewart), and appeared regularly on television, with contributor on Fox News and featured guest on “The Phil Donahue Christmas Show” among her credits.

She was also the host and producer of another Clapper Publishing product, a cable television show called “Crafting for the ’90s,” for nearly a decade.

After selling the company, Clapper kept her schedule filled, mostly with her “dream job” as pastoral services coordinator for a local church, and her husband became a flight instructor. And, in a few years, when Jeff Clapper relocated to Northwest Arkansas to work for 8th & Walton, she was able to stay loosely connected to the business world by offering advice and sharing her experiences when needed.

Life as a retiree was unfolding in a most usual way for Clapper, but by 2013, an opportunity to work closer with her son had presented itself.

“I was writing some things for their blog, [working] maybe five to 10 hours a week,” she recalled. “Just nice, gentle work and pressure-free. I worked my own schedule, mostly from Chicago, but when NBC started to show interest, it took on a different flavor.”

 

The Big League

8th & Walton was formed in 2006 by Matt Fifer to provide classroom training on how suppliers can better do business with Walmart. The company grew from a handful of classes in Northwest Arkansas to virtual classes that are now taught online and throughout the country.

To supplement that mission, the company developed “Saturday Morning Meeting” as an informational webcast, produced in the 8th & Walton offices in the Bentonville Plaza, and posted online each Saturday morning on the company’s YouTube channel.

The first episode aired June 8, 2013, and that’s when Jeff Clapper began talking to his mother about taking a more dedicated role with the company.

“It just made a lot of sense,” he said. “She used to do a lot editorially and had a background in ad sales. It just all fit together.”

By the end of 2013, 8th & Walton announced that local NBC affiliate KNWA-TV had agreed to increase the show’s reach by airing the program each Saturday night, effective January 2014.  And recently, Clapper announced expanded content, new segments and a re-airing of the program a second time each week, on Sunday mornings.

The show is now being filmed at studios at Ozark Film & Video Productions in Springdale. The production, including securing guests, is now Marie Clapper’s main focus, and she’s had to get up to speed on an evolving and more tech-savvy media industry, and the retail industry, as well.

“She has been a completely devoted student in retail; here, you have to be,” Jeff Clapper said. “You’ve got to be curious about everything that is happening, and she is inherently a curious person.”

“She had some background in retail, but this is the big leagues here.”

Clapper said she’s had to re-learn an industry she once knew like the back of her hand. And adjusting to the speed of the workday is a continuing process.

“Not just because of the technology, but there’s just a different mindset with texting and emailing,” she explained. “Communication has evolved and that is still a challenge for me. I’m more likely to pick up a phone and call someone and that’s not usually the first means of communication. Not today.”

 

An Explicit Goal

Because she wasn’t content with the leisure in her life, Marie Clapper now splits her time between Chicago and Northwest Arkansas, playing out the second act of her career while proving her craftiness in the business arena all over again.

“I’ve been very fortunate,” she said. “We just came back from my 50th college reunion and I didn’t even talk about the state of my health one time. I have a lot of energy and I want to make the most of it.”

Describing business as the best game in the world, Clapper isn’t content with simply producing a television show. She is explicit when asked about her goal for “Saturday Morning Meeting.”

“I want to win an Emmy,” she explained. “They have regional Emmys, and I think that would be a lovely last chapter. I think we’re on the right road.”

And if Jeff Clapper’s description of his mother is an apt one, don’t bet against Marie Clapper’s ambition. Her dominant traits, he explained, will serve her well.

“She is the type of person who picks a goal and goes for it,” he said. “She is very determined, and really diligent, and it’s inspiring for all of us.”