Mei-Mei Chan Named President and Publisher of The News-Press

AAJA Seattle members took Mei-Mei Chan out for a farewell breakfast on March 23, 2010. (Clockwise from top left: Convention Student News director Marian Liu, AAJA Seattle Treasurer Nicole Tsong, AAJA Seattle President Sanjay Bhatt, AAJA National President Sharon Pian Chan, former AAJA Vice President Mei-Mei Chan, former AAJA National Treasurer Janet Tu.)

U.S. Community Publishing division has named Mei-Mei Chan president and publisher of The News-Press in Fort Myers, FL, effective March 29. Chan has been the vice president of advertising for The Seattle Times Company since 2004. She succeeds Carol Hudler, who was named president and publisher of The Tennessean in Nashville late last year.

Chan is rejoining Gannett, having started her career as a reporter at the Commercial-News in Danville, IL, in 1981 and was among the first loaners who helped launch USA TODAY in 1982. She also was an associate editor at USA WEEKEND. Before Chan joined The Seattle Times, she was executive editor of the Post Register in Idaho Falls, ID. She also served as an assistant metro and deputy features editor at the Chicago Sun-Times.

Chan joined The Seattle Times in 1997 as manager of strategic initiatives and became head of circulation that December, a position she held for seven years. As head of circulation, Chan was instrumental in the successful conversion of The Seattle Times to morning publication.

She was named Sales Executive of the Year for large newspapers by the Newspaper Association of the America in 2003.

Chan is on the board of the Seattle Theatre Group, and was chair of the National Association of Minority Media Executives. She helped create Leadership Eastside in the Puget Sound and was the organization’s marketing vice chair. Chan also served on the national advisory board for the Poynter Institute and was a board member of the Circulation Federation of NAA. She was the founding president of the Washington, DC, chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association and was national vice president of print for AAJA.

She received her B.A. in communications from the University of Illinois at Champaign. Chan was a participant in the Center for Creative Leadership’s “Developing the Strategic Leader” program as well as an adjunct instructor in graduate studies at Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. She also was a fellow of the Maynard Institute’s Management Training Center at Northwestern University.