Randall-Reilly buys Better Roads and Aggregates Manager magazines

Randall-Reilly Publishing, the nation’s leading business-to-business media company serving the transportation and construction markets, today announced that it has acquired Better Roads and Aggregates Manager magazines from James Informational Media, Des Plaines, Illinois.

“These acquisitions are a natural fit for our Construction Media Group,” says Mike Reilly, president and CEO, Randall-Reilly Publishing. “Better Roads has distinguished itself as the leading magazine for highway professionals for 76 years and Aggregates Manager is the voice of operations pros in the aggregates field,” he says. Randall-Reilly’s other construction properties include Equipment World and Total Landscape Care magazines, EquipmentWorld.com, the Top Bid and TopBid.com used equipment reference guides and Equipment Data Associates, the industry’s most complete source of equipment ownership data.

Randall-Reilly inherits an accomplished management team, including James’ four co-partners, Editorial Director Kirk Landers, Publisher Mike Porcaro and Managing Partners James Moriarty and James Morrissey.

“I’ve known the James partners as fellow construction industry association members as well as competitors for years,” says Dan Tidwell, vice president and group publisher of Randall-Reilly’s Construction Media Group. “Being on the same team with these gentlemen is a partnership one can only dream of – but now it’s a reality.”

Tidwell also points out that the acquisition brings together some of the top editorial talent in the construction industry: Marcia Gruver, Equipment World’s editorial director, James’ Editorial Director Kirk Landers, who served as chief editor of Construction Equipment magazine and Randall-Reilly’s VP of Editorial Linda Longton, who previously served as editor of Equipment Today magazine.

From James’ perspective, the goal of the sale was to take the magazines to the next level, says Porcaro. “We chose Randall-Reilly after evaluating everyone in the market and felt we could serve our industries even better from within the Randall-Reilly group,” he says.
“We’re ready to take these magazines to new heights,” Reilly says of Better Roads and Aggregates Manager. “With the need to build and maintain North America’s highways and bridges reaching critical levels, and the subsequent need for aggregate in those markets and others, we’re poised for the magazines to continue their upward trend,” he says.