By Bulletin Staff, June 3, 2011
Cathryn Cronin Cranston, past Chair of the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, died on May 31. While serving as chair from 2005-2009, she helped lead the Bulletin through a major transformation, reconnecting the publication to its roots in the science, technology, and security policy community, and moving it to all-digital publishing.
The Bulletin was fortunate to have such an experienced media executive with global expertise in sales and marketing, premium content, and digital distribution as leader of the Bulletin's board during the continuing revolution in the publishing industry.
During her time as Chair of the Board, she was Executive Vice President at Mansueto Ventures, owner of the Inc. and Fast Company media brands, and before that was world-wide publisher at the Harvard Business Review. She had begun her publishing career at the New York Times, where she held a variety of strategic planning, marketing and sales management positions in New York and California.
Cathy grew up reading the Bulletin. She liked to say that the Bulletin was in her DNA. Her father, James Cronin, Nobel Laureate in physics at the University of Chicago, had also served on the board of the Bulletin and continues his involvement as a member of the Board of Sponsors. Cathy reminded us that science is the "true North" of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists even as the Bulletin undertook major changes in its publishing and distribution formats. When the publication moved from print to all-digital distribution in January 2009, she remarked that the Bulletin "had gotten out of the manufacturing and shipping business," helping to streamline its operations and increase the Bulletin's reach to readers around the world.
With her understanding of publishing trends, her intellectual commitment to scientific integrity and independence, her boundless energy and complete dedication to the Bulletin, she was the best leader at the right time for this venerable and essential organization. The Bulletin will honor her by continuing to inform policy leaders and the public "without fear or favor" about the dangers from nuclear weapons and climate change and to search for solutions for a safer world.
Kennette Benedict
Executive Director
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