Jeff Widmer

Jeff Widmer is a writer and editor. He specializes in book-length nonfiction and large-scale marketing communications work.
Personal life and education
Jeff Widmer lives in the Pocono Mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania. Widmer studied writing with Arno Karlen (Biography of a Germ) at Penn State University and creative nonfiction with NPR’s Christopher Joyce at Goucher College. He studied fiction with Bob Reiss (Black Monday) and the late John Gardner (Grendel).
Career
Widmer is the author of and the first business and trade paperback books, respectively, published by the University of Scranton Press. He has written for Advertising Age, Philadelphia, Newsday, and the Rotarian and contributed photography to National Geographic World. He has also served as a cultural and economics correspondent for Attaché, now US Air Magazine.
Widmer covered the construction of America’s first space shuttle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Noteworthy, his column on music and spoken-word audio, was nationally syndicated through the Dow Jones/Ottaway News Group. He also served as a regular contributor on contemporary jazz and classical music at CD Review magazine. He is the author of the economic-development component of Monroe 2020, Monroe County, Pa.’s comprehensive land use plan.
Widmer has worked as the editor and principal writer of Round Trip, a travel publication of the former Resorts USA in Bushkill, Pa., and Bulldog, one of the oldest private magazines in the nation. He also served as a business and city editor for the Pocono Record, a daily newspaper formerly owned by the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
He served as a copy editor for the first edition of The Warren Buffett Way by Robert G. Hagstrom, Jr. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995) and as a judge in Gold Quill competition for the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). In 2009 he worked with producers at Picture Shack Entertainment on a reality-based show for Animal Plant called The Haunted.
In 1993 he founded LightSpeed Communications, a marketing communications company.
As a public relations practitioner, Widmer has written website copy for the North American Institute, the educational arm of Mack Trucks and Volvo Trucks North America. In 2007 he served as the art director for the Mack Performance Tour, visiting 10 cities in several countries to interview 77 truck drivers and owners. He has written numerous profiles and annual reports for the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation in Allentown, Pa., and East Stroudsburg University, East Stroudsburg, Pa.
As a PR account supervisor at Bethlehem, Pa.-based marketing agency swb&r, Widmer helped to launch the agency’s blog, Biz2Biz, and guide the firm’s social media strategy. In addition to Mack Trucks his clients have included Crayola, National Penn Bancshares, Masco Bath/Delta Faucet, and lifestyle center developer Bayer Properties/Forest City Enterprises. He has also mentored numerous students, including several through the Public Relations Society of America.
Awards
In 1997 Widmer reached the finals in Gold Quill Awards competition sponsored by IABC. Prior to that, he won two IABC regional awards and three statewide awards from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.
Service
Widmer is a member of the West End Rotary Club in Brodheadsville, Pa., a past president and Paul Harris Fellow. He is a charter member of the Advisory Board of Pocono Area Transitional Housing, which helps the homeless become self-sufficient. A former board member of the Monroe Unit of the American Cancer Society, he served on the board of the Monroe County Historical Association. To assist emerging writers he created the social network Soundings. He is a member of the Public Relations Society of America.

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