This year Mobile Electronics magazine celebrates its 30th birthday. To mark the occasion, we present an exerpt from the upcoming February/March issue's Editor's Forum: 

Thirty is that age when most of us transform from being carried by life to sticking an oar in the water and choosing a direction. The short version of this statement is that it’s when most of us decide to grow up. We go from taking in and evaluating experiences to every now and then being able to spit out some knowledge to others. Then come the questions about who we want to be, where our career is taking us, and if the relationship we’re in (if any) is going down the road to something valuable and long term.

You think magazines go through the same thing when they turn 30? Let’s see.

Installation News was born in 1984 as a newsletter to so-called shade-tree installers to give them information on working with alarms on the latest vehicles. Relays played a prominent role, and the first copies were filled with wiring diagrams on using the five-pronged miracle boxes to interface with locks, lights and door triggers.

As it grew, Bobit Publishing broadened its coverage to include autosound, and companies like American International, Metra and Scosche amazed installers with perfect-fit kits, while at the same time perplexing us with “puzzle kits” designed to fit a multitude of vehicles. Just about every shop had a bin full of plastic pieces left over from these kits, just in case they were needed on a future install. (This bin was next to another full of speaker grilles and bags of screws and brackets that we planned to someday use ... yeah, right.)

Eventually, the publisher saw the benefit of broadening the magazine’s subject matter even more. The installers who started the industry and were masters of their craft were suddenly fish out of water as they grew their businesses ... and had to start treating them like businesses. The name Mobile Electronics Retailer hailed the start of a magazine that encompassed the whole store, from register to roll-up door. Readers began to really learn what it took to plan, strategize and build a business to profitability, and they got to see peer-to peer examples of guys who were doing it right.

But that doesn’t mean the magazine forgot its roots. Along the line it purchased Mobile Electronics Specialist magazine, which was famous in the industry for its annual Top 100 Installers list. The contest was folded into MER’s offerings, and it still plays a prominent role in the industry today.

To read the rest, be sure to pick up a copy of the February/March issue of Mobile Electronics magazine, to be released in early March.