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Spouse Symposium |
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Babette Maxwell Co-Founder and Editor in Chief Military Spouse Magazine |
For 35 years, Babette Maxwell has been on the move. First as a fourth-generation Army brat, then as a Navy pilot’s wife, Babette is used to packing up her life and family every year or so. As an engineer, Babette has worked for both the Navy on submarine HVAC systems and for the Air Force on the C-5’s TF-39 engine, but like most military spouses, she found her career took a back seat in her husband’s cockpit.
A mechanical engineer by education, a military spouse by choice, a mother by experience and an innovator by nature, Babette realized that although she found an instant community every time she moved to a new military installation, her connection to her fellow spouses was fragmented at best. She was part of a transient subculture that people outside of the military, especially the mainstream media, just didn’t get.
That’s where the idea for a magazine by and for her peers took shape. As Co-Founder and Creative Officer, Babette juggles her commitment to Military Spouse with her other full-time job: raising three young sons with her husband, David.
When the first issue of Military Spouse magazine launched in September 2004, the response from readers proved Babette’s theory correct: military spouses want and need a way to connect with each other. Since that first issue, the magazine has gained new readers and subscribers with every bi-monthly publication. With features on military families on welfare, convicted sex offenders living on military installations, career development, military travel, parenting and other topics, military spouses found a source of information tailored specifically to them. Newsmakers like Alma Powell, Senator John McCain, Madeleine Stowe, Catherine Bell, all four US service secretaries and Laura Bush have shared their thoughts with Military Spouse readers.
With corporate advertisers including Procter and Gamble, Boeing, Heinz, Unilever, Coty and Johnson and Johnson, the magazine is distributed worldwide through military installation retail stores as well as nationwide through Barnes and Noble, Borders Books, Books a Million and Wal-Marts near military bases. For more about the magazine, visit www.milspousemag.com.