Hedda Schupak (pictured), whose storied jewelry industry career includes 23 years at JCK and nine years as its editor-in-chief, is stepping down as the editor of The Centurion newsletter, part of a long-planned “semi-retirement.”

Former JCK senior editor Anthony DeMarco, who handled online news, will take her place as The Centurion’s editor.

Schupak and husband Jim Baum always hoped for an early retirement, though Baum is “retiring a little more thoroughly than I am,” she says.

“No one leaves the jewelry industry completely,” she says. “I’ll do some projects, maybe some stories here and there, and fill in during busy times at Centurion, but not work all the time.”

She and Baum plan to do volunteer work—Schupak for the local Democratic party, and her husband for Meals on Wheels.

Schupak feels fortunate that she landed at JCK, which was then published by Chilton out of Radnor, Pa., as it combined her interest in style with her talent for writing.

“I’ve always been interested in fashion. I started as a fashion design major in college, but I couldn’t draw, so that put the kibosh on that. At Drexel, my professor said, ‘Your drawing’s terrible, but your writing is good.’ So I went to Albright College and got an English degree.”

She started at the publication in 1986, first working in the production department.

“I felt if I was going to work my way up the editorial chain, I would need to know both sides of the editorial process. When I became chief editor in 2000, my time there held me in good stead.”

Eventually, she moved to the fashion beat, where she grew to enjoy not only covering design but also the geopolitical aspects of the industry. And, of course, she made lots of friends.

She was one of the handful of JCK editors who stayed during the 1997 “mutiny,” when most of its editors and top staff walked out to form a rival publication.

“It was pretty traumatic. It happened on a Friday afternoon. Monday morning [former Chilton vice president] Rick Bay told us, ‘Those people were your colleagues, now they’re competitors.’ And Reed poured a lot of money into saving the brand, and the magazine completely reinvented itself and ended up far stronger.”

In 2000, she became JCK’s editor-in-chief and served in that role until 2009. In 2010, she began her run as editor of The Centurion newsletter.

Along the way, she nabbed more than two dozen awards. She was named Trade Press Editor of the Year by the Jewelry Information Center in 2004, and was named one of Pennsylvania’s Best 50 Women in Business Award by the state’s department of commerce in 2003. In 1995 she was awarded the Women’s Jewelry Association’s Excellence in Media prize, and in 2006, the WJA inducted her into its Hall of Fame. While she was editor-in-chief, JCK won several Folio and Jesse H. Neal awards.

While she still plans to attend a few industry events, she admits it will be “bittersweet” to leave the business she devoted her life to.

“I have just been fortunate to have had such a great career in such a great industry. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to travel around the world, and to meet people from so many places. I just feel very blessed.”

Asked for any parting words for the business, she says, “This is an industry that is very resistant to change at times. And while you never want to just change for change’s sake, sometimes it comes whether you want it or not, and you have to embrace it and figure out how it’s going to work for you.”

(Photo courtesy of Hedda Schupak)

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