About Spence & Company

Do an Internet search for "business writing" and you get more than 250 million results. But in 1953 when Lewis H. Spence started Spence & Company, no one had thought to teach writing to business people. Now, over 50 years later, Spence & Company instruction in business and technical writing is still the finest available. Yet it all began somewhat serendipitously.

Having worked as a journalist for Time magazine, Spence had decided to offer his services to corporations to write their annual reports and other business communications. He managed to get a 15-minute audience with Marvin Bower, McKinsey & Company's CEO, who even then was a business legend. When Spence pitched his services as a writer, however, Bower told him that McKinsey was not interested. But if Spence could teach McKinsey consultants how to write, he had a contract.

Spence had a little over two weeks to develop his course on business writing and make a proposal. At the Princeton University library, near where he lived, he found a book that taught the principles of classical rhetoric as the foundation of good writing. Spence identified the essential principles contained in the five-hundred-page treatise and adapted them to the specific requirements of business and technical writing. These principles became the core component of the Spence & Company course on business writing.

Thus was born the unique approach to business writing that has been the signature of Spence & Company training programs, without essential modification, for over 50 years. No other training program on written communication for business teaches so explicitly how to structure your message for greatest clarity and persuasiveness.

Lewis Spence retired from teaching Spence & Company seminars in 1995. He passed away at his home in Cranbury, N.J. on May 12, 1998.

Padraic Spence, Lewis's eldest son, joined Spence & Company in 1978. He added to the Spence & Company approach to business and technical writing the benefits of modern training techniques, turning his father's more formal seminar into a dynamic, hands-on workshop in which participants learn by doing. He saw, furthermore, that the company's structured approach to writing could be translated into a unique set of worksheets. To that end, he developed the Worksheets for Organizing Ideas (Long and Short Forms), the Reader Profile Form, and the Write Smart Guide.

In 1991-1992, he and his brother, Matthew, rewrote Lewis Spence's original training manual. Then in 1996, Padraic rewrote the course materials again, publishing them as two books, Write Smart… and Get Decisions: The Complete Guide to Business Writing and Business Writing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. These books continue to be used as course materials for all Spence & Company workshops. Mr. Spence retired as Spence & Company president in 2005.

Matthew Spence, Lewis Spence's youngest son, has spent three decades studying the dynamics of how individuals interact and communicate in groups, organizations, and communities. He became president of Spence & Company in 2005.

From 1998 to 2005, Matthew worked in Brazil as a management consultant, designing and leading strategic retreats. He also taught executive development programs in Portuguese on the design and implementation of large-scale organizational change.

Matthew Spence spent the previous fifteen years as a writer, speaker, educator, and facilitator in the non-profit sector. Additionally, he has worked in banking, IT services, and litigation support.

Matthew Spence received a B.A. with honors from Harvard University. He lives in Portland, Oregon.