George Wilson Retires from Newspapers of New England

By: E&P Staff George Wilson announced he is retiring as president and CEO of Newspapers of New England, the parent company of the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire. He will remain as chairman.

Tom Brown, the current publisher of the Monitor, will succeed him. Geordie Wilson, publisher of the Monadnock Ledger in Peterborough and George Wilson's son, will become the Monitor's new publisher.

"I hope they have the same joys and challenges I've had for so long," George Wilson said in a statement.

Wilson, 68, joined the Monitor as an advertising salesman in 1962. His wife's family had just bought the paper and the Monitor has remained in the family since then. Wilson served many stints at the paper -- reporter, photographer, press operator, and general manager -- before becoming publisher in 1974, a position he held until 1987.

"I really wanted to put the paper beyond the level of most other small papers," he said in a statement. "We wanted to make it a place where young writers were encouraged to go, and where bigger papers could find talented reporters. The goal has always been to do good journalism."

Wilson is a past president of the American Newspaper Publishers Association (now known as the Newspaper Association of America) and the New England Newspaper Association. He is also on the board of directors at the Washington Post and served on the Associated Press board for many years.

Tom Brown was previously the publisher of the Missoulian in Montana before joining the Monitor in 1987. He worked as a reporter at newspapers in Oregon and Montana. Brown is the secretary of the New England Newspaper Association.

During Brown's tenure as publisher, the Monitor added a Sunday edition and developed an on-site commercial printing business.

"One of our goals is to grow the company and expand our presence in New Hampshire and western Massachusetts," Brown said in a statement. "If the opportunity comes along, we'll certainly consider acquiring publications or producing our own new ones."

Geordie Wilson, 41, has been publisher of the Monadnock Ledger since 2003. He worked as a reporter at the Greeley Tribune in Colorado and the Seattle Times. He was the Monitor's city editor in the mid-1990s and helped develop the newspaper's Web site. He is the fourth generation of his family to work in the newspaper industry.