Schuenemeyer, David

1952-2023

By Jim Matalone

Long time outdoor advertising executive, David Schuenemeyer passed away this past week at the age of 71 while fighting his second battle with cancer.

David’s outdoor career started with Creative Displays in Lexington, Kentucky in the late 70’s.  During his time with Creative, David worked in several markets being elevated to GM in Wichita Falls, Texas.  After Creative Displays sold in early eighties, David joined with several former Creative Displays partners in Atlanta when they purchased Turner Outdoor.   With Jim McLaughlin as GM, David became the sales manager.   During his tenure there he built and trained a large and strong sales team that consistently outperformed the market.  After Turner sold in late eighties, David teamed up again with Jim McLaughlin with his purchase of Peterson Outdoor to form POA and he served as VP of Sales.  POA’s success in the nineties is well documented as being one of the best run outdoor companies of its time.  David was an integral part of the success.

At Turner and POA, David was much more that a sales leader.  He was a true mentor to just about everyone who worked with him.  His dedicated, creative, selfless, and unassuming management style brought out the best in everyone.

After POA sold in 1996, instead of pursuing other opportunities at the pinnacle of his career, David elected to retire to devote all of his time and efforts to helping the homeless and less fortunate.  He worked with many ministries over the years to provide food and basic necessities to people in need.  Some of his work included soliciting grocery stores to make food donations which he would deliver to homeless food kitchens, food drives,  developing community food gardens to serve homeless, and even picking up old billboard vinyls from billboard plants to make temporary tent shelters.  He continued his humanitarian work all the way up to the last weeks of his life.

Even though David has been out of the OOH industry for well over 20 years, his impact on the industry is still  felt through all the successful careers he helped developed.  And long after David had retired, he was always happy to lend an ear and offer good advice to former colleagues and friends.  Today, there people in all the major outdoor companies at all levels of management that will tell you they owe a great deal of their success to David.  Most former colleagues would tell you that David was not only instrumental in their career success but also made them better people.  He certainly did that for me.

Beloved Former OOH Executive David Schuenemeyer Has Passed Away