The people who built the Journal. (Austin Business Journal)

The people who built the Journal

The Austin Business Journal was founded 10 years ago to fill a void in business news coverage and to bolster the political ambitions of its first owner.

Lynn Gary, who now is director of marketing, personnel and training for TransAmerica Pawn Corp., said he started the paper because he believed Austin needed an outlet specifically for local business information.

"When Lynn and I talked about it, there was no way of getting business news," said Bill Martin, who sold ads in the newspaper and served as the its first general manager. "The daily paper, at that time, didn't even have a business section."

Gary and Martin also were inspired by the success of the Houston Business Journal.

But Gary recalled, "There was another goal that nobody knew about, which was that I had always wanted to run for public office and I thought a newspaper would be a good way of getting my name known."

"At first I solicited all the articles, took all the pictures, laid out the paper and I wrote a few articles," Gary said. "I had the Austin Chronicle do the typesetting, which was ironic because the most liberal paper in town was doing tthe typesetting for the most conservative, business paper."

Gary said his philosophy was "to get experts in the field to write the articles instead of staff writers." He also made it a goal "to run as many photos as possible because …