Q&A: A Former Writer for TravelAge West

Scan the masthead of an early edition of TravelAge West (TAW), and you’ll see the name “Lon Torman” listed as one of the magazine’s Contributing Editors.

Throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s, Torman was based in New York, serving as a jack-of-all-trades for a variety of publications under TAW’s then-parent company, Dun & Bradstreet (D&B). He filled in as a writer and editor when needed, and served as assistant to TAW’s first editorial director, Martin Deutsch.

Now, Torman spends his days doing what he always wanted to do: writing novels. (His first, Anne Du Lac and the King’s Birthright, is available for purchase on Amazon.)

Q: The year is 1969. What do you remember about TAW’s founding?

A: Our parent company, D&B, owned a group of publications at the time, and the concept surrounding TAW was to begin the publication strictly for the frontline travel agent. We had a designer who came up with a design that was totally radical at the time — it had a ragged right edge and bold-face type. If it was going to succeed, it was decided that the first issue had to look and feel different from everything else out there. And it did.

Q: What were some of the big issues facing frontline advisors at the time?

A: One of the big issues was how to get an automated booking system out. It was in the era when reservation systems were just becoming available. D&B was trying to push out their own system to the airline industry; it would have been the first automated booking system for agents. The company was working with the Air Transport Association and had all the software done, but the airlines were moving toward Sabre.

Back then, Sabre was typewriter-driven; agents would type on an IBM electric typewriter and put in the information, and Sabre would give a confirmation. It was wild. In those days, everything was done by hand, and it was very basic.

Q: What is a favorite memory from your time on staff?

A: There was a group of publications under D&B, and Deutsch’s philosophy was that if you’re working for one, you should be working for all.

I remember doing a story on Hawaii, and because of the destination, it would have appeared in TAW first, and then become filler for another TravelAge publication. I also took an inaugural British Airways flight on “the Kangaroo Route.” We started in New York City, went to San Francisco, then Hawaii, then Fiji and finally to Sydney. It was on a Boeing 707 aircraft.

It was almost 48 years ago, and it was my first visit to Australia. I wrote a couple articles on the destination and the route, but it turns out that trip would be important to me later. Now, Australia is the setting for a novel I’m writing.