Don sent the following message to Audible employees in December 2023, honoring the passing of longtime Newark business leader and real estate developer, Marc Berson.
Audible and Newark lost a business leader when our longtime landlord, Marc Berson, died on Saturday, December 2nd. My 17-year personal relationship with Marc led to Audible's tenancy at One Washington Park and our redevelopment of the Innovation Cathedral. Marc was a key collaborator in our vision to grow the tech and innovation ecosystem in our headquarters city, and he supported some of the more inventive (and often-resisted) ideas that enabled a company like Audible to play a catalytic role in making a rising Newark real. Marc was one of the first to step up to be an investor in Newark Venture Partners, and he understood the vision of what a dozen more nascent Audibles could mean for Newark. I remember standing on the 17th floor of One Wash and looking out at Newark as we imagined together the continued comeback of this great city, including a recasting of Newark as a creative economy mecca that creates new jobs at all levels.
Our friendship and relationship helped define the higher-order purposes of Audible’s presence in Newark. He once asked me to speak about him at a dinner a few years ago, when he took a rare bow for his work in Newark, including his focus on better health care for all Newarkers, and I joked that 'our discourse offers a high water mark in the relatively dark history of landlord-tenant relationships.'
Many will miss Marc's focus on the city where he was born, and I will miss him as a friend and ally.