Author/Retired Marketing Consultant Gerre Jones died peacefully at his home in Show Low, Arizona on May 15, 2015. He was 88. For more than 30 years prior to his retirement in 1990, Jones served design firms in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Europe as a marketing, public relations, and editorial consultant. From 1976 through 1989 he was editor-publisher of Professional Marketing Report, a marketing newsletter for design and construction professionals. He is the author of many books about marketing design services. Jones was a marketing executive for such design firms as Edward Durell Stone (New York), The Kling Partnership (Philadelphia), and Ellerbe Associates, Inc. (Washington, D.C.). Trained in engineering by the Army during World War II at Virginia Military Institute, Jones went on to study journalism and law at the University of Missouri following the war. He spent the period 1963-1967 in Munich, Germany, as an official of Radio Free Europe. RFE was a radio asset of the Central Intelligence Agency, broadcasting to East Europe. In the 1950s he served as a sworn officer in the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department, with a primary assignment to undercover vice activities. A retired Air Force Officer, his active duty service included command of an information squadron in the Secretary of the Air Force's Office of Information in the Pentagon and several years as reserve editor of Airman magazine. Jones was named an Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects in 1979 for "distinguished service to the architectural profession." He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Charlotte (Reinhold) Jones, two daughters with their husbands, Beverly and William Putnam and Wendy and Jack Stout, grandsons, Rennie Putnam and Zachary Putnam and Zach's wife Jude Lieberman. He is also survived by his nephews, Dennis and Don Cleveland in the Kansas City area. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Published in Kansas City Star on May 17, 2015