Ann Arbor, MI, January 24, 2023 – Above the Treeline, the company behind the book industry platform Edelweiss, is celebrating 20 years of the company’s existence with the announcement of the newly established Community Cultivator Award. The award was created to honor book industry partners who’ve made unique contributions to the success of the platform through the years.
“As part of celebrating 20 years, we reflected on the many people who have helped us along the way,” stated John Rubin, CEO of Above the Treeline. “In many ways, Edelweiss is a community-sourced product—and our job has been to listen and integrate what the community has wanted. Having folks provide us with honest input and great ideas has been so critical to our success. The initial list of Community Cultivators is a ‘who’s who’ of those types of people.”
To be eligible for the Edelweiss Community Cultivator Award, individuals had to be nominated by a member of the Edelweiss team. The individual must have consistently provided ‘game-changing’ ideas, assistance, and contributions which had a significant impact on the success of the company. Current employees of the company were not eligible.
The initial Community Cultivator Award recipients are as follows:
- Kara Coughlin (Senior Manager, Sales Ops, Harper Collins)
- Robert Landry (Senior Analyst, Penguin Random House)
- Josh Marwell (President of Sales, Harper Collins)
- Arsen Kashkashian (Head Buyer, Boulder Bookstore)
- Kimin Kirkpatrick (Former Sales Manager, W.W. Norton)
- Roberta Rubin (Former Owner, Bookstall at Chestnut Court)
- Gayle Shanks (Founder and Co-Owner, Changing Hands Bookstore)
- Meg Sherman (Field Sales Manager, W.W. Norton)
- Evan Ufer (Partner, Plymouth Growth)
- Jane White (former Library Success Manager, Edelweiss)
In Memorium: Charlie Trachtenbarg (Manager of Sales Analysis, Harper Collins) and Karl Pohrt (Owner of Shaman Drum)
“Edelweiss was an industry game changer and still is,” states Gayle Shanks, founder and co-owner of Changing Hands Bookstore. An early supporter and advocate of Edelweiss, she explains, “In addition to the ordering ease of Edelweiss and the backlist information it provided us, there was the abundance of information that Edelweiss provided me to make me an even better buyer including data to slice and dice, books to 'recover' that had been lost in our system, and ease in reporting bestsellers…Thank you Edelweiss for changing my professional world for the better.”
For inquiries, contact marketing@abovethetreeline.com.