The Minnesota DailyâÄôs Board of Directors has selected next yearâÄôs Office of the Publisher staff.
Taryn Wobbema, Aaron Riippa and Jacob Piekarski will manage the DailyâÄôs three divisions and roughly 150 employees beginning in May. The board announced the appointees last week.
After nearly three years of writing and editing news stories for the Daily, Wobbema will oversee the entire editorial division as editor-in-chief.
Since starting at the Daily in the spring of 2009, she has worked her way up through the newsroom âÄî from an intern to editor of the campus desk âÄî but Wobbema didnâÄôt have her heart set on the top job until she applied for it.
Come May, Wobbema will manage the newsroom, sports, arts and entertainment, editorials and opinions and paper production.
The biggest challenge for next year will be replacing graduating seniors with quality reporters and writers, she said.
Wobbema, a junior journalism and sociology major, said sheâÄôs ready to tackle the long nights that often accompany the job.
âÄúIâÄôm looking forward to it,âÄù she said.
Piekarski will move to the presidentâÄôs office from the high-walled cubicle where heâÄôs managed the editorials and opinions department since January.
A relative newcomer to the Daily, Piekarski started as a member of the Editorial Board last May. At the time, he had no plans of âÄúrunning the place,âÄù he said.
His time at the Daily has helped him narrow his career plans, said Piekarski, a history and Spanish senior. He hopes to aid current and future Daily employees in the same way.
âÄúI want to make the Daily a more valuable experience for the people who work here,âÄù he said.
Piekarski hopes that will in turn attract the best employees to make the paper âÄúa better resource for the community overall.âÄù
As president, Piekarski will manage human resources, marketing, information systems and the website for the paper.
Riippa, the next business operations officer, said he has been interested in taking over the division since he started at the Daily in February 2010 as a marketing consultant.
The applied economics senior will leave his post as classified sales manager to oversee finance, advertising sales, advertising production and distribution of the paper.
As advertising clients have shifted their focus away from print, Riippa said the key to a healthy budget is stressing the DailyâÄôs importance in student life.
âÄúWeâÄôre still the premier news source for one of the largest campuses in the country,âÄù he said. âÄúWeâÄôre part of their college experience just as much as going to football games or student groups.âÄù