Marty Petty was named publisher of the St. Petersburg Times and Neil Brown was named executive editor in a pair of promotions Wednesday that underscores the respective leadership of the paper's business and news operations.
Brown, 46, has served the past nine years as managing editor and also is a vice president of the paper. Petty, 51, joined the Times in 2000 as executive vice president. Both are currently members of the Times' board of directors.
"These new titles do not change their responsibilities, which are already quite broad, or their relationships to me. Rather, the titles reflect the deep confidence that the organization and I have in them," said Paul C. Tash, chairman and CEO of the St. Petersburg Times and the Times Publishing Co.
Neither of the titles - publisher or executive editor - has been in use at the Times for nearly five years. "They should have the titles that describe the work they are already doing," Tash said in a note to staffers.
Both executives report directly to Tash, who assumed leadership of the paper in May upon Andrew Barnes' retirement.
As executive editor, Brown will continue to direct all journalism at the Times with the exception of the editorial and opinion pages.
"My job has been to bring the great resources of the Times' newsrooms together ... as we think about fresh ways to be relevant to readers throughout all of Tampa Bay," Brown said. "The great strength of the St. Pete Times is, no matter what success it enjoys, it's always trying to get better."
Brown joined the Times in 1993 as world editor, overseeing coverage of Washington and national politics, as well as foreign coverage. Before that he spent five years in Washington, D.C., at Times affiliate Congressional Quarterly, including nearly four years as CQ's managing editor. He also worked for eight years as a reporter and editor at the Miami Herald.
Brown has served as president of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, a professional association of newspaper journalists.
Originally from Chicago, Brown graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, majoring in journalism and political science. He is married to journalist and author Gelareh Asayesh and they have two children, Mina and Max.
As publisher, Petty will oversee all business operations, including advertising, circulation and production.
Petty echoed Brown's call that the paper needs to stay vigilant and adaptive as Tampa Bay grows. "We cannot become complacent as a result of our past successes," she said.
Her biggest challenge: "Keeping up with the changing needs of our advertisers and our readers," she said. "That's kind of oversimplified but it really sums it up."
Before joining the Times, Petty had been publisher of the Hartford Courant.
Earlier in her career, she lived for 18 months at the U.S. government's leprosy home and research hospital in Carville, La., producing a photojournalism documentary with her husband, a photographer. After that, she became nationally known as a newspaper design and photography expert while at the Kansas City Star and Times.
Petty went to Hartford in 1983 to become the paper's managing editor, and later ran operations and marketing efforts before being named publisher.
She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. While in Hartford she earned a master's of science in management from the Hartford Graduate Center (Rensselaer at Hartford).
She and her husband, Mark, who has a gallery in downtown St. Petersburg, have two children, Lindsay and Skip.
