, an island icon and a champion of our community’s parks and trails, sadly passed away last month. But his legacy goes way beyond his staunch support of the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation and the creation of Islandwood – the Puget Sound environmental learning center on Bainbridge’s south end – that he launched with the help of his wife Debbie, more than two decades ago.
I got to know Paul Brainerd some 35 years ago when he was running Aldus Corp. in Pioneer Square and I was the founding editor of a relatively new statewide business magazine called Washington CEO. Back then, Boeing was still Washington’s most recognizable business. Weyerhaeuser was a close second, and relative newcomers like Microsoft and Starbucks were just emerging on the national scene. No one had ever heard of Amazon, because it didn’t exist!
After a few conversations with Paul, I convinced him that a cover story in our magazine would help enhance his business – not only among potential Pagemaker users – but also with the titans of Wall Street. He agreed and we produced a cover story in May 1991, with the catchy headline, “Pagemaker’s Papa”. The piece, several thousand words long, shared the arc of Brainerd and Aldus Corp.’s evolution from his college years at the University of Oregon to his challenges securing investment money to back his fledgling company.
Brainerd was a classic entrepreneur. He sank $100,000 of his own money supporting Aldus in the early days, only to watch the money dry up after six months of research and development. But that setback didn’t deter him. He then went on the road in search of $1 million in venture capital. Fifty stops later – you heard right, 50 – he finally found a company willing to back his emerging enterprise…