This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
When President Bush checks into his hotel at the summit meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized nations next month in Germany, a copy of the official 2007 G8 Magazine will be on the lamp stand beside his bed.
Inside the 100-page publication will be a welcome letter from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. General Motors, German airline Lufthansa, the Save Darfur Coalition and Forbes magazine will be among the advertisers. Stories will include write-ups on the private jet industry, Internet pornography and near-zero emissions technology.
Although the magazine will have a global thrust, its source is Salt Lake City. For 11 years, G8 has been published locally by Chris Atkins, a British transplant and owner of The CAT Co. Inc., frequently with help from Jared McCloud, a former employee with whom he has parted company.
"It's not a general publication. You won't see it on the newsstand. The target audience is some of the most powerful, influential decision-makers on this Earth," Atkins said.
G-8 meetings are supposed to foster agreement on economic issues facing the U.S., Canada, France, Germany Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Russia, with the European Union as a ninth member. This year's meeting will be June 6-8 in Heiligendamm, Germany.
Atkins has printed 15,000 copies of the magazine for distribution to the leaders, their staffs and the journalists covering the summit. Copies will be available in hotel rooms and Lufthansa lounges. They are being sent to the governors of all 50 states, as well as to 535 U.S. senators and representatives, and to embassies around the world.
In it will be advertisements for two Utah-based companies.
"We are using it as a marketing tool, to see what interest there might be in what we are doing. That's all I have to say. Mum's the word," said Charles Kallman, CEO of Field Sanitation Solutions, a Provo company that bought three full-page ads.
The ads introduce a portable, personal-waste-collection and reclamation system that converts human waste into a nontoxic compost suitable as an agricultural fertilizer. The ads offer scenarios illustrating where the system could be useful.
"It's going to be read by over 250,000 people. It's not the type of magazine that you throw away," Kallman said.
The ads are accompanied by a letter from Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who says the Field Sanitation Solutions' "scientific breakthrough . . . offers unprecedented real world solutions capable of saving thousands of lives."
Another Utah advertiser is CP80, an Orem-based organization fighting Internet pornography. Calls to CP80 were not answered.
Publisher Atkins moved from England to Utah to take a job with an advertising company in Salt Lake that no longer operates and to fulfill a longtime dream of living in the United States. He decided to stay in Utah because he enjoys skiing, camping and other outdoor pastimes.
"It beats the British lifestyle of going to the pubs and watching soccer."
Atkins competes each year for the right to produce the magazine for the summit. He refused to disclose the value of the latest contract with host country Germany, other than to say it's a moneymaker.
"It's the largest project that I physically own. I own the rights to produce and to distribute the magazine for the G-8 Summit for this particular year. Next year, I've got to start the process all over again."