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November 8, 2012

The Wichita Eagle
Joe Stumpe
Pg 2C

Bradbury spent 30 years as a newspaper reporter and editor before going to work for the Greteman Group marketing agency as a writer in 2006.

“It’s certainly different, although writing is writing,” he said. “I probably approach advertising writing more as a reporter than somebody who came into advertising straight from school. I still think of myself as somewhat of a reporter. I find out or research what’s going on with a client or the issue at hand.”

This month he was named a vice president at Greteman. He said he will continue to write for most of the agency’s clients, including FlightSafety International, Flexjet, USAIG, Signature Flight Support, Dallas Airmotive and Bombardier Aerospace.

He said the new title reflects a greater involvement in agency strategy. Bradbury, 58, grew up in North Dakota and South Dakota, where his parents owned weekly newspapers. He earned a degree in political science from the University of North Dakota, spending a memorable summer in Washington, D.C. – the summer President Nixon resigned – as a page in the U.S. Senate.

After college he worked for the Bismarck Tribune, Fargo Forum, Rapid City Journal and Grand Forks Herald, helping the latter win a Pulitzer Prize in public service journalism for coverage of the city’s 1997 flood. He also amassed most of the credits necessary for a master’s degree in spaces studies from UND. He moved to Wichita in 2001 to take a job as night city editor of The Wichita Eagle.

Thanks to Greteman’s focus on aviation, he said, he’s learned “as much as possible for a non-pilot” about the subject. But the actual writing for clients is varied – “everything from Christmas cards to email blasts to technical brochures to advertisements.”

Outside work, Bradbury enjoys photography, reading, hiking and camping. He’s also passionate about music, whether listening to it, playing it or making guitars and mandolins to play it on.

“I’ve been to (the Walnut Valley Festival) in Winfield every year since I’ve been to Kansas,” he said.

© The Wichita Eagle, 2012