Minister of Marriage and Energy
Long's story about obtaining a minister's license is, like most accounts of his hobbies and oddities, rooted in zeal, humor and generosity. He explains: "I was playing Cupid one day. One of Terri's friends, Kelley, was having trouble finding the right man. After an evening of fortifying drinks, I approached her and said I knew someone named Tom who would be her perfect match." After much prodding, the two met. Nine months later, they were engaged. Soon after, Kelley mentioned to Long that, because he had introduced them, it would be fun if he could marry them.
"She was mainly kidding," says Terri Long, a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines who's known by print industry spouses and northern Kentucky friends for being energetic, attractive and witty. "One day, Jeff walked up to me in the kitchen," she recalls. "He said, 'It looks like I'll have my license before Kelley's big day.' I had no idea what he was talking about. Then he said, 'I passed my tests. I should be an ordained minister by next week.' Well, I just about passed out. Kelley was thrilled."
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Jeff Long has an interesting or
humorous story about each of his hobbies and oddities, including how he
became an ordained Christian minister who's licensed to perform marriages
and baptisms.
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The night before Kelley and Tom exchanged vows at the Metropolitan Club in Covington, Jeff Long worriedly told his wife that he needed a Bible to use during the ceremony. Terri remembered that her husband's family Bible was in the living room bookcase. When she opened the book, she noticed a library card in the back. "Jeff has to be the only minister in history to marry someone while using a book that has been overdue since 1978," she says. "I'm still not sure how he pulled it off, but the ceremony was incredible. When Jeff was done, there wasn't a dry eye in the house."
Jeff Long's ability to whet his appetite with new challenges will benefit DMIA when he becomes the association's president next month, says Jim Riley, CFC, CEO of distributorship Riley Barnard & O'Connell Inc., St. Louis, and a fellow DMIA Board member. Long officially takes the helm Nov. 1, following DMIA's Print Solutions 2004 Conference & Expo in Rosemont, Ill. "He's the right guy at the right time," says Riley, whose daughter and son-in-law also were married by Long. "He doesn't shirk from responsibility, and he has a knack for taking difficult situations and turning them into thoughtful discussions. He's one of the most engaging and charismatic people I know."
Long is marketing manager of Atlanta-based Graphic Dimensions Inc. He works at the company's Newport, Ky., plant, which previously was home to Short Run Checks & Forms Inc. Long began that manufacturing firm in 1984 with his partner, Frank Hamilton, who's general manager of Graphic Dimensions' Newport facility. Short Run Checks & Forms merged with Graphic Dimensions in 2002. Long will be DMIA's first president to work for a manufacturer, the result of an association bylaw change that gives members equal standing instead of categorizing them as distributors, manufacturers and suppliers. Prior to the change, only DMIA members who worked for distributorships could become president.
Convictions of a Colonel
Jeff Long sits on a chair on his backyard patio. The topic of discussion is his conviction that meaning, not coincidence, is the hidden driver of life's events. "When a person crosses my path, I feel like there's a reason for it, and I often spend a good deal of time considering that reason," he says. When he has something he feels is important to share, he speaks slower, pausing to choose the right words. "I'm aware that I can help people in some capacity, they can help me, or both," he says.
Terri is in the kitchen, and her husband wonders aloud if she needs help making pineapple upside-down cake. His wife is a woman of many talents--she discusses politics with astuteness, hits golf balls down the fairway and beats her friend Lisa in impromptu arm-wrestling matches--but cooking isn't her biggest. That's Jeff's domain, and this evening he's preparing baked salmon with a special hollandaise sauce.
The Longs frequently play host to neighborhood dinner parties, and they consciously keep their house comfortable instead of museum-like. The outside walls are composed of oversized brick made by a company in North Carolina that tumbled the brick down a conveyor belt to give it a centuries-old feel. Inside, the house décor is a quaint blend of antique (bedroom sets), contemporary (Ralph Lauren Polo leather chair in reading room) and whimsical (life-sized, fake butler named Alfred standing by the front door). Photos of Jeff's four grandchildren, Terri's family and mutual friends abound. Jeff has three sons from a marriage that ended in 1990, and two of his sons have kids. Terri was married once before marrying Jeff.
Terri opens the back door to the patio and sits at a table, across from her husband. To her right is a well-manicured, sprawling lawn with a fountain and swimming pool. "The last time I made pineapple upside-down cake, I added a cup of oil instead of water," she says.
"Turned out to be interesting," Jeff says, emitting his high-pitched laugh.
"Interesting wasn't exactly what I was going for with that dessert," Terri says.
Jeff is 18 years older than Terri, but their age difference has no bearing on the liveliness or content of their conversations. They say they agree with each other most of the time, and their mutual respect prevents squabbling. They often make good-natured jokes at the other's expense, but both say they're thankful for the other's sense of humor. "I appreciate Terri's honesty and loyalty," Jeff said earlier in the day. "She's a free spirit and a loving person. She's dedicated to us, and she's beautiful."
The couple met in the early 1990s after Jeff and Frank Hamilton had purchased four houses in Newport for $30,000 each. They invested $45,000 in each to refurbish them, then sold them for $125,000 apiece--the record sale price for a Newport home at the time. They received calls from neighbors who were pleased that the value of their properties and the stature of their neighborhood had increased. "The biggest reward from that project was hearing from one lady tell me how grateful she was to be able to get a second mortgage and buy the piano she always wanted," Long says.
Because of their refurbishing efforts, Long and Hamilton were named Kentucky Colonels, the highest honor awarded by the Commonwealth. They both received a certificate signed by the governor and secretary of state. They also both received an invitation to a Christmas party that year. The host was Terri, the leader of the neighborhood association. She and Jeff became friends, began dating a year later and were married in 2000.
The couple often travels to Aspen for ski vacations. "I was so nervous the first time going down the slope," Terri says. "Jeff would go slowly in back of me and sing little songs that he made up on the spot. He's great about making people feel comfortable, and one of the best things about Jeff is he constantly surprises me."
One night a few years ago, Jeff proclaimed that he wanted to be a tap dancer. Partly as an attempt to call his bluff, Terri and three of her friends chipped in to buy Jeff tap shoes and six beginners' lessons at Cincinnati's Ziegfeld Follies studio. "I walked away from the first lesson thinking I'd never get the hang of it," Jeff says.
Jeff often says two kinds of people exist: ones with entrepreneurial spirit who are sustained by risk-taking and are "willing to take that leap" (or drop-heel-brush-step, as the case may be for tap dancing), and ones sustained by security and who find comfort in steady progression. "I have friends on both sides of that fence," he says. "But when I'm locked into a goal, I like to be around open-minded, entrepreneurial types. That process begins with being open-minded yourself." He says one of his weaknesses is that he becomes so concentrated on a direction that he doesn't handle objections or obstacles well. "My patience can become limited."
Terri sighs when she says she doesn't know how much patience she has for her husband's new-found affinity for tap dancing. "I hear there's a video of his latest routine," she says. "I'd like to see that. I think I'd be nervous just watching it."
Thriving on Snow, Leading on Water
Jeff Long grew up on a cattle ranch in Woody Creek, Colo., a dot on the map five miles south of Aspen. To visit his nearest childhood neighbor two miles away, he learned how to drive at age 11. Like most area kids, he learned how to ski in elementary school, when teachers gave ski lessons on Wednesday afternoons for 50 cents. ("That dates me," Long admits.) In a few years, he was regarded as one of Pitkin County's best ski demons. "I was immediately attracted to speed and still am," Long says. "To feel the wind in your face and the exhilaration of being able to conquer a piece of terrain still fascinates me." When he recounts his trip down one of the tallest mountains in France, his eyes widen. "When there's clear blue sky and you're on top of a mountain, there's a calmness that overtakes you," he says. "My love of the outdoors is above all other hobbies."
Long aimed to ski for the University of Colorado, but broke his leg in a downhill accident when he was 17. Wanting a sense of newness, he moved east and enrolled as a fifth-generation student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He studied psychology, sociology and anthropology. "That equates to majoring in one large liberal arts degree called Getting Out," he says.
Upon graduation, Long joined the U.S. Navy's auxiliary forces, taking his father's advice that it was an ideal way to see the world. He began as a deck division officer and gunnery officer on a fleet oiler. "It was the first time I was responsible for other people's actions, and I took that seriously," he says. When his ship's navigator left for Vietnam, Long took his place and learned the ship's communications system. He soon became a "CDO" (command duty officer), in charge of the ship and her 200 sailors.
Completing two years of service, he moved to Charlotte, N.C., to work for Wachovia as a commercial loan officer. He analyzed the financial health of companies to determine if their goals justified their loan requests. Long says he enjoyed the job "immensely" because it appealed to his affinity for statistics. "I also could feel the sense of pride when I visited entrepreneurs at their business locations," he says. "It was an opportunity for me to see how people made a living, and it was becoming tough for this farm kid to stay in a corral."
Long says his move to Charlotte and city life was difficult. "It was a dimensional growth step for me," he says. "Growing up, I wasn't introduced to coercion and back-stabbing. None of that was prevalent on the farm, and sometimes it's good to learn through knocks and bruises. I found it was possible to stick to your morals and be aggressive at the same time."
