Tag Archives: Bill Marcil Jr.

2012 Forum Forward class graduates during ceremony in Fargo

Posted on by
Reply

The 2012 Forum Forward graduating class and mentors, from left to right: Dickinson Press Publisher Harvey Brock, JobsHQ Employment Specialist/Sales Team Leader Lisa Tillotson, Forum Regional Operations Manager Curt Christensen, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo Customer Service Representative Kari Saylor, FCC Director of Multimedia Sales Operations Amy Fredrickson, Forum Features Editor Heidi Shaffer, Duluth News Tribune Ad Director Roz Randorf, FCC Digital Accounts Manager Chad Jacobsen, RiverTowns Newspaper Group Multimedia Producer Roger Sievers, Echo Press Variety Editor Tara Bitzan, Grand Forks Herald Editor Steve Wagner, WDAY-TV Regional Sales Manager Joshua Rohrer, FCC CEO Lloyd Case, Forum General Manager Aaron Beecher, Forum Reporter Ryan Johnson, FCC Executive Vice President and COO Bill Marcil Jr. and Daily Republic Publisher Korrie Wenzel.

FARGO, N.D. – Eight Forum Communications Co.employees were feted this week as the 2012 Forum Forward class graduated and became alumni of the company’s leadership training program started several years ago. Graduation was held Tuesday at the Radisson Hotel in downtown Fargo. Members of FCC’s senior management team were on hand to celebrate, as were each of the graduates company mentors, who are an integral component to the program. “This is a culmination of a year spent visiting various divisions within our company, including Broadcast, Commercial Printing, Digital and Newspaper,” said program facilitator Sonjia Anderson. “This has provided them insights into leadership skills, professional growth, and the opportunity to share best practices.” The graduating class also participated in brainstorming session on company innovation to generate ideas relating to reducing expenses and increasing revenue. Projects coming out of the past innovation sessions include the Forum News Service, the Green Team, and the “We Are Forum Communications” branding video. The 2013 Forum Forward participants and mentors also gathered in Fargo this week to begin their year of training.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Tara Bitzen with her certificate. Her mentor, Grand Forks Editor Steve Wagner stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Ryan Johnson with his certificate. His mentor, Daily Republic Publisher Korrie Wenzel stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Joshua Rohrer with his certificate. His mentor, FCC Executive Vice President and COO Bill Marcil Jr. stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case gives Forum Forward graduate Heidi Shaffer and her mentor Amy Fredrickson a hug.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Lisa Tillotson with her certificate. Her mentor, Dickinson Press Publisher Harvey Brock stands at right.

Forum Communications Co. CEO Lloyd Case presents Forum Forward graduate Kari Saylor with her certificate. Her mentor, Curt Christensen stands at right.

The 2012 Forum Forward graduating class included: – GRADUATE: Tara Bitzan, life/variety/special projects editor, Echo Press, Alexandria, Minn. MENTOR: Steve Wagner, editor, Grand Forks Herald, Grand Forks, N.D. – GRADUATE: Chad Jacobsen, digital accounts manager, Forum Communications Co., Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Roz Randorf , ad director, Duluth News Tribune, Duluth, Minn. – GRADUATE: Ryan Johnson, reporter, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Korrie Wenzel, publisher, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D. – GRADUATE: Joshua Rohrer, regional sales manager, WDAY-TV, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Bill Marcil Jr., executive vice president and chief operating officer Forum Communications Co., and publisher, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, N.D. – GRADUATE: Kari Saylor, customer service representative, Forum Communications Printing-Fargo, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Curt Christensen, regional operations manager, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Heidi Shaffer, features editor, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Amy Fredrickson, director of multimedia sales operations, Forum Communications Co., Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Roger Sievers, multimedia producer, RiverTown Newspaper Group, Red Wing, Minn. MENTOR: Aaron Becher, general manager, The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, Fargo, N.D. – GRADUATE: Lisa Tillotson, employment specialist/sales team leader, Jobs HQ, Fargo, N.D. MENTOR: Harvey Brock, publisher, The Dickinson Press, Dickinson, N.D.

Forum Communications Co. debuts video-only website InforumTV

Posted on by
Reply

Robin Huebner goes through a test run of an InforumTV webcast in the video studio of The Forum building in Fargo. InforumTV launched today at InforumTV.com. Photo by J. Shane Mercer / The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

By Shane Mercer
FARGO, N.D. – The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead and WDAY-TV and radio today launched the InforumTV website with three live morning news webcasts anchored by Robin Huebner.
Plans are to eventually offer top-of-the-hour updates throughout the workday.
Huebner’s webcasts will air at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. Monday through Friday on Inforumtv.com. The site will also have the capacity to deliver news live from the field.
InforumTV will be a separate site from The Forum’s Inforum.com website, and focuses strictly on video.
There are plans to develop a morning show for InforumTV, said media manager Jim Manney, who heads up the video department at The Forum.
Manney said InforumTV will also produce and webcast live talk shows in the future.
“It’s a place for us to deliver news, information and entertainment to readers, viewers and listeners,” Manney said.
He has big dreams for the site.
“I can see it becoming, at some point, a 12-hour-a-day network,” Manney said. “It’s very ambitious, I know, but it’s something that I think will definitely happen over the course of the next few years.”
In addition to the live offerings, the site will be home to “the nearly 27,000 videos that Forum Communications Co. has shot,” Manney said.

Multimedia developer Ryan Babb works behind the boards in the video studio at The Forum building. Photo by J. Shane Mercer / The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Communications is the parent company of The Forum, WDAY and other media outlets in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. New video from these various outlets will be added to InforumTV’s searchable archive as it is created.
“What we want people to do is explore; to jump on the website and search the stories that they’re interested in,” Manney said. “And we want you to kind of get lost and explore and have some fun and see what we have available.”
WDAY News Director Jeff Nelson said the site will enhance what WDAY.com is already doing.
“InforumTV is going to allow us another avenue to get those stories out to people,” said Nelson, who described it as “an opportunity for Forum Communications as a company to really go out and be everywhere with everybody.”
While The Forum has already been producing video for the Web, Forum Editor Matthew Von Pinnon believes the InforumTV venture marks a new emphasis on video newsgathering for the staff.
“If there’s a news event happening, we’ll bring it to people, and we’ll stream it, and we’ll show it,” he said. “It could be a press conference; it could be breaking news, fires, weather, whatever. We can be out in the field and sharing that information with people in real time.”

Bill Marcil Jr. publisher of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Publisher Bill Marcil Jr. sees InforumTV as a “big part” of the company’s future.
“We will still provide the very best platform for news and advertising with Inforum, but by separating the two, we will have a better user experience for the person that just wants video,” he said.
“We will provide not only news updates but local news stories, weather and original content with the ability to go live any time of the day or night,” Marcil said.

Shane Mercer is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a Forum Communications Co. newspaper.

The Forum, WDAY-TV and InforumTV are all owned by Forum Communications Co. Forum Communications Co. is a multimedia information company based in Fargo. Forum Communications owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Bill Marcil Jr. named chief operating officer of Forum Communications Co.

Posted on by
Reply

Bill Marcil Jr. has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer of Forum Communications Co.

FARGO, N.D. – Bill Marcil Jr. has been named executive vice president and chief operating officer of Forum Communications Co., which publishes The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead.

Marcil will continue in his role as publisher of The Forum.

“The election of Bill as chief operating officer has been in our succession plans for a number of years,” said William C. Marcil, chairman of the board of Forum Communications Co.

“Bill is the fifth-generation publisher of the family-owned Forum,” he added. “The (Marcil) family’s committed to a locally owned newspaper company, and this succession will enable us to do that.”

Lloyd Case remains president and chief executive officer of Forum Communications.

Forum Communications Co. President and CEO Lloyd Case

The board also re-elected company vice presidents heading divisions:

- Paul Amundson, vice president of digital.

- Dennis Hall, vice president of commercial printing.

- John Hajostek, vice president of finance.

- Steve McLister, vice president of newspapers.

- Mark Prather, vice president of broadcast.

Dennis Hall

Paul Amundson

Steve McLister

John Hajostek

Mark Prather

As the diversity of divisions and delivery platforms indicates, “we’ll deliver the information any way the consumer wishes to receive it,” William Marcil said.

Forum Communications Co. is a multimedia information company based in Fargo. Forum Communications Co. owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Forum Communications Co. names Becher general manager of The Forum

Posted on by
1

Aaron Becher has been named general manager of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead.

By Erik Burgess
Forum Communications Co.

FARGO, N.D. – Aaron Becher is no stranger to running a newspaper.
Fresh out of college in 1996, the Faribault, Minn., native decided to quit a fulltime advertising job and start up his own weekly newspaper from scratch.
“It just gets in your blood from the very beginning,” Becher said of the news business.

With this experience and much more under his belt, Becher has been named as the new general manager of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead.
Becher has been the newspaper’s advertising director since April 2009. He will assume his new role on Oct. 1.
“Aaron’s proven track record with our company has propelled him to his next challenge,” said Forum Publisher Bill Marcil Jr. “I look forward to having him help The Forum as we continue to face the challenges of the constantly changing media landscape.”

Bill Marcil Jr., publisher of The Forum.

Becher said navigating the newspaper through this “changing landscape,” mediating between print and online news, is a challenge he will enjoy taking on as new general manager.
“Everything we do and think about is how do we marry the two and make sure that we’re giving due credit to both,” Becher said.
He said in his new role, he will work to foster a more collaborative atmosphere at the newspaper.
“Hopefully, what I can do is help connect some of that talent across departments so that everybody in The Forum really has a good feel of what each department is doing and what some of their key objectives are,” he said.
Becher earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations and communications from the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, in 1993. He was advertising director at the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune, a Forum Communications Co. paper, from 2006 until 2009. Before joining the Duluth News Tribune, he was advertising director for Murphy McGinnis Media in Duluth.
Eric Burgess is a reporter for The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a Forum Communications Co. newspaper.
The Forum and the Duluth News Tribune are both owned by Forum Communications Co., a multimedia information company based in Fargo. Forum Communications Co. owns dozens of newspapers, websites and television and radio stations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Forum’s iconic rooftop sign returns; outfitted with LED lighting and digital video camera

Posted on by
1

A refurbished sign for The Forum is lifted into place Wednesday. Dave Wallis / The Forum

FARGO – The iconic Forum sign has returned. Workers from Indigo Signworks and Industrial Builders Inc. used a crane to lift the 60-foot sign back into place on top of The Forum building Wednesday. The sign was removed Dec. 19 to be refurbished. To read more, check out the story.