Christopher Eddings embodied what he wanted to see from the Baltimore community and in the journalism business: professional success, mentoring and community service, those who knew him said.

Eddings, the former president of The Daily Record and director of publishing operations for the publication’s owner, BridgeTower Media, was a Massachusetts native who called Baltimore home for nearly 30 years.

In 2013, Eddings was awarded the Walter Sondheim Exemplary Leadership Award by the Greater Baltimore Committee. Standing on stage in a room surrounded by peers who believed in serving communities as he did, Eddings shared his gratitude for Baltimore. He felt it had adopted him, his family and those he loved.

Eddings, who earned many awards in his lifetime, died on Dec. 10 from complications of lung cancer while under hospice care at Stella Maris. He was 75.

“He chose to get involved, he chose to give back to the community and he dedicated a lot of time to it,” said Suzanne Fischer-Huettner, publisher of The Daily Record. “He believed in news, good journalism, and public notice and access. He really was extremely passionate about that.”

Eddings was born on Sept. 10, 1949, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He was raised by a single mother who worked as an administrative assistant for a publication in New England.

Eddings attended Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and majored in speech, according to a 1971 article from the The Sun Journal. On campus, he worked as a student assistant for the speech department and was an active member of the Robinson Players, the student theater organization.

Outside of Bates College, Eddings was active with the Maine Republican Party, serving as the chairman of the Maine Federation of Young Republicans and executive director of the Maine College Republicans, among other leadership roles. It set the stage for future roles he would take on later in his adulthood.

He told The Sun-Journal, shortly after graduating college, that he planned to join the U.S. Navy and return to Maine after. Life, however, took him elsewhere. Eddings followed in his mother’s footsteps by also pursuing a career in the news publishing business.

Eddings worked at several daily and weekly newspapers in Massachusetts and Texas. And spent time in Darmstadt, Germany, as the general manager of the European edition of The Stars and Stripes, a 163-year-old independent news publication serving the U.S. military.

In 1997, he joined The Daily Record as the publisher. He rose through the ranks, becoming group publisher of The Dolan Company’s law publications in 2003 and operations director for The Daily Record in 2010.

When Eddings wasn’t working, former colleagues said he liked reading history and biography books and traveling. He also enjoyed participating in karaoke from time to time.

Like his college years, Eddings was as involved outside of work as he was at work, and spent much of his time supporting causes in the Baltimore community.

Eddings served on several boards, including that of Humanim, a statewide human services not-for-profit; WorkFirst, a workforce development nonprofit; the Greater Baltimore Committee; Baltimore Reads, a literacy organization in the city; and many others.

He held leadership positions at the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association, American Court and Commercial Newspapers, the New England Press Association and the Public Notice Resource Center.

As an executive, Eddings championed women. Those close to Eddings told The Baltimore Banner he wanted to see women in leadership roles and welcomed opportunities to mentor them into those positions.

In 2010, when Eddings was promoted to director of publishing operations at the Dolan Company, now called BridgeTower Media, he tapped Fischer-Huettner to become the first woman publisher in The Daily Record’s 122-year history, according to the Baltimore Business Journal. Eddings also often had a hand in the publication’s tentpole event, Maryland’s Top 100 Women.

“He had such an admiration and love for the accomplishments of his mother,” said Rebecca Snyder, executive director at the Maryland Delaware District of Columbia Press Association. “I think early on, he just saw that women could and should be at those top levels of leadership.”

Eddings retired from The Daily Record and the Dolan Company, now known as BridgeTower Media, in 2014. Even in this retirement, Eddings continued to serve on boards and in 2017, Gov. Larry Hogan appointed Eddings to a three-year term on the State Publication Information Act Compliance Board, resolving complaints about unreasonable fees to view public records.

Eddings was inducted in 2008 into the New England Press Association Hall of Fame and received the Distinguished Service Award in 2014 from the MDDC Press Association.

Those who knew him said none of this was possible without the support of his wife, Denise, and their sons, David and Sam, who he is survived by.

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