From multiple subscriptions to multiple books – Sean P. Holman, writer, editor, businessman, dad. Follow his journey through the media. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
5:06 – growing up, you could get yourself in as much trouble as you wanted to
8:57 – what can I get away with before my mom would get mad at me for spending money on something I probably didn’t need?
15:38 – offroading was like freedom, you were away from the road, no street signs or anyone telling you what to do
31:28 – At the end of my career, I had been there for 20 years, and I was overseeing all the truck and off-road magazines when they decided to dissolve that part of the business
40:32 – The romanticism of off-roading started for me in the magazine; the problem is we used to be influencers before there were influencers
53:35 – My favorite is the Raptor story, it goes back to 2007, starting with “how did you know?”
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:39.800] – Big Rich Klein
On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I’ll be speaking with a guy who went from having 13 magazine subscriptions as a kid to working his way up in the print magazine business. That’s right, Sean P. Holman. Sean, it’s great to have you on the podcast, and I’m really looking forward to hearing your story.
[00:02:00.340] – Sean P. Holman
Yeah, thanks for inviting me on. It’s one of those things that I feel like everybody in the industry has been on, so I’m glad to get my turn now.
[00:02:08.830] – Big Rich Klein
Yeah, it’s a fun thing, and hopefully we learn all about you. With that, let’s get started. Where were you born and raised?
[00:02:20.590] – Sean P. Holman
I’m a SoCal native, born in Orange County in Anaheim, and then been a lifelong resident of Huntington Beach, California. So been here forever.
[00:02:31.250] – Big Rich Klein
Huntington Beach is pretty good.
[00:02:33.680] – Sean P. Holman
Yeah, it doesn’t suck. I’ve traveled the world. I’ve wheeled on four or five continents, and I’ve had a chance to see a lot of different places. And it’s funny because I’ll get home and you land at John Wayne Airport and you get that ocean air hit your face and you go, Man, I live here. And there’s never been a place I’ve gone where I like more than where I already live.
[00:02:56.850] – Big Rich Klein
Wow, you’re fortunate. There are lots of places that I would love to live. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we got the ocean smell, too, but it was from the fog. Oh, yeah. Grew up right by San Francisco International Airport, so We had wind and we had fog at the right times of the year, but it was always windy. That’s why they put the airport there.
[00:03:20.790] – Sean P. Holman
Cold, windy, Candlestick Park.
[00:03:23.870] – Big Rich Klein
Yes, absolutely. I started going there, ride my bike there as a kid, watching Giants and going to 49er… Well, went to 49er games first in Keesar in Golden Gate Park. I’m old enough to do that. And then a season ticket holder with the Niners, and still am.
[00:03:41.050] – Sean P. Holman
So, yeah. Very cool.
[00:03:43.320] – Big Rich Klein
So let’s talk about those early years, your family, of course, must have worked in the area?
[00:03:52.290] – Sean P. Holman
Yeah. My family was from here. My dad’s side of the family My mom was from the LA area, and my grandfather worked at the Department of Water Power and moved the family down to Huntington Beach sometime in the ’60s. Then my mom’s side of the family is from Louisiana, and my grandfather was a, I guess, Carpenter, but they moved out to town. It was a dairy area in South Los Angeles County called Norwalk. But yeah, so my- No longer dairy. No longer dairy. No, it hasn’t been that way in a long time, although there’s a few a few hints if you know where to look. But yeah, so from my mom and dad, they were SoCal natives. And yeah, just they decided to raise the family here. And we’re all still here. We’re all still in SoCal.
[00:04:55.710] – Big Rich Klein
So what was it like growing up in that area? What’d you do as a kid for entertainment when you weren’t having to do school work and stuff?
[00:05:06.830] – Sean P. Holman
Yeah, it’s funny. I used to joke how I never… I lived behind the beach. I don’t have any tattoos. I don’t surf. In fact, it’s a joke from when my wife and I met each other. But yeah, as a kid, we rode our bikes a lot. I mean, it was pretty awesome living at the beach growing up. I mean, my house, I grew up in is my parents still live there, the mile from the house I own now. So it’s nice because we’re close to family and stuff. But it was super safe. You can get yourself in as much trouble as you wanted to. We had an airport here that was a shopping center. We used to go lay in the weeds by the runway and watch the planes take off and land until a pilot would report us. We get chased out of there. Then I would go ride my bike. I would go ride 20 miles. I would ride to Angel Stadium or up the River Jetty or down to Corona Del Mar, which is south of Newport Beach. I looked back now on how far and how independent I was as a kid, where my mom basically saying, Hey, come back before the streetlights come on. READ MORE
