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Contact: Jeff Fister, 314.220.5020

Local Publisher Forms New Company, Moves from Software Firm

ST. LOUIS, Dec.22, 2015 – Jeff Fister, longtime local publisher, has moved his firm STL Programs from Mira, Inc., to a new company focusing on niche publishing opportunities.

Fister formed the new company, STL Programs LLC, in October. Previously, STL Programs was part of Mira, Inc., a Brentwood-based software development company.

Before joining Mira in 2012, Fister had owned for 22 years the West End Word newspaper, which he sold in 2011 to the publisher of the Webster-Kirkwood Times. Fister also owned Virginia Publishing Co., a book publishing firm which he sold to Mira in 2012. He is co-founder but no longer an owner in Bluebird Publishing Co., a book self-publishing firm.

While at Mira, Fister developed STL Programs, which publishes special event programs, theater playbills and community directories. STL Programs now publishes more than 40 booklets a year, including program guides for the Great Forest Park Balloon Race, the Saint Louis Art Fair, Circus Flora, Kirkwood Theatre Guild and the Sheldon Concert Hall. The company also produces more than a dozen local community directories, including, most recently, ones for Ladue and Brentwood.

The STL Programs model is to provide organizations with booklets at no charge; the company makes its revenue from advertising sales.

“I like working with local arts groups, neighborhoods and municipalities,” Fister said. “We still feel there is an important role for printed materials in these niche markets.” Fister said that STL Programs worked with Mira to develop a digital “flipbook” product for each publication. These digital booklets have their ads linked to the advertisers own websites.

Fister is a 1981 graduate of St. Louis University. Before his publishing career he worked as an editor for the Suburban Journals Newspapers and in public relations for McDonnell Douglas Corp. (now Boeing) and Martin Marietta Corp. (now Lockheed Martin). He is married, has eight children and lives in the Clifton Heights neighborhood of the city of St. Louis.