By Wendy Reuer

The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead

Forum Communications Co. President and CEO Lloyd Case

FARGO, N.D. – Lloyd Case, president and CEO of Forum Communications Co., recently was elected president of the Inland Press Association at the group’s annual meeting in Chicago.

The association provides training, research and consultation for all departments within a newspaper.

“It represents all aspects of the news industry – the revenue side, the cost side, and of course, the news,” Case said. “So the training and the webinars that are put on represent all aspects of our business.”

About 1,200 newspapers ranging in size from small weekly papers to metropolitan dailies belong to Inland Press Association.

Forum Communications owns nine daily and 25 weekly newspapers in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota, including its flagship daily paper The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. The company has been a member of Inland Press for decades, but Case is the first from Forum Communications to be named president.

“The organization of Inland is all about representing newspapers of all different sizes, so it fits well with our company,” Case said.

Case said during his one-year-term as president followed by a one-year chairman position, he will continue Inland’s mission of providing quality training to members. He said he expects a focus on the industry’s continuing shift to digital production.

As a company, Forum Communications has bolstered its own production of digital media, online and in video production, but Case said print has not, and will not, fall by the wayside.

“Print still represents 85 percent of our revenue across the country, so there still has to be a balance between print and digital, there’s no question about that,” he said.

To become president, members must serve on the board of directors before they can be selected to serve as an officer, which is a six-year movement through the ranks. The long-term commitment gives candidates knowledge and expertise inside the association, said Tom Slaughter, executive director of Inland Press Association.

“For someone like Lloyd, it’s a real sign of service and commitment to get into the point he is now,” Slaughter said.

Case, a Goodrich, N.D., native and University of North Dakota graduate, worked in public accounting for nearly a decade before joining Forum Communications – then called Forum Publishing Co. – as a controller in 1982.

He was named vice president 10 years later and chief financial officer of Forum Communications in 1992.

He was elected president by the company’s board of directors in 2006 and CEO in 2010.

A summer Inland Press Association board meeting is planned in Fargo to discuss the association’s strategic plan for the future.

“I know Lloyd is excited to get moving on that,” Slaughter said.

Wendy Reuer is a reporter at The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, a Forum Communications Co. newspaper.