Jim Bowman, former Chicago Tribune columnist and former Chicago Daily News reporter, writes business and local history. Most recently he made a short book from his Wednesday Journal columns. It's A Short History of Oak Park: Volume One, 2004-2005, listed below.

His work includes book-length histories of Booz, Allen & Hamilton, CFS Continental, Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, and Safety-Kleen. For each he dug into archives and outside documents and interviewed people from chairman to shipping clerk for what makes a company or institution unique.

He is available to do the same for your company in book, article, brochure, or however you want to memorialize your company, inspire employees, or stimulate business.

This short history is an informal account based on monthly columns by Jim Bowman in the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park & River Forest (Illinois). It reports events with commentary, implied or otherwise, catching the flavor of Oak Park life. Bowman grew up in Oak Park in the 30s and 40s, He and his wife have lived there since 1970 and raised their six children there.

* Beyond Burnham: An Illustrated History of Planning for the Chicago Region, by Joseph P. Schwieterman and Alan P. Mammoser, Lake Forest College Press, 2009; Bowman did editing and research for this book.

* Winston & Strawn: The First 150 Years, privately distributed history of a Chicago law firm, 2004; Bowman was a researcher and writer for this project.

* Reach Out . . . The Story of Motorola and its People, by Harry Mark Petrakis, 2003; Bowman was an editor.

* History of William Blair & Company, Chicago, investment banking firm, completed 2000, unpublished

* Florsheim the Brand: 100 Years and Counting, Florsheim Shoe Co., Chicago, 1996. Production was halted when company was sold.

* "Waste Not . . .": The Safety-Kleen Story, J.G. Ferguson Publishing Co., Chicago, 1989

* Booz, Allen & Hamilton: Seventy Years of Client Service, 1914-1984, New York, 1984

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Priests at Work: Catholic Pastors Tell How They Apply Church Law in Difficult Cases, by Jim Bowman, is on sale at Xlibris.com. $18.69 in paper. (Formerly Bending the Rules: What American Priests Tell American Catholics)

2004-2009, Bowman did a monthly column for Wednesday Journal of Oak Park & River Forest (Illinois). Recent columns.

* Blithe Spirit: Conservative commentary on events and others' commentary. Chicago newspapers, churches, Oak Park (IL), politics, and the merely curious.

* Not for Attribution: Diary of a Mad (Catholic) Reader. More personal, heavier on the religious and literary.

1982-85. For the Tribune Sunday Magazine, "The Way We Were," a column on Chicago history using Tribune clips and Chicago Historical Society, Newberry Library, and Art Institute of Chicago files.