Bill Shultz has been named Circulation Director of The Vindicator and Tribune Chronicle effective immediately, Ted Snyder, general manager of the newspapers, announced Friday.

Shultz is a veteran newspaper circulator and brings 16 years of experience at The Vindicator to the combined operation, which now distributes more than 40,000 newspapers daily and more than 50,000 Sundays. The Vindicator became part of the Tribune Chronicle operation Sept. 1 following the closure of the Youngstown operation.

Shultz will lead an expanded distribution department with about 20 employees and more than 200 contracted carriers and haulers delivering to subscribers and retail outlets primarily in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.

“I am looking forward to working with our subscribers and doing all I possibly can to make their experiences as good as possible,” Shultz, 45, said.

“We are very pleased to have Bill join our management team and lead our circulation department,” Snyder said. “Serving in basically the same capacity at The Vindicator, he is very familiar with both the Mahoning and Trumbull markets.

“We are fortunate to gain Bill’s knowledge in our Circulation Department, which had to scale up to add The Vindicator’s subscribers on very short notice.”

Snyder said the operation is continuing to add to its customer service team and plans to have an upgrade to its telephone system soon that will make it easier to handle the increased call volume that came with the expansion.

“Bill brings the expertise to our operation that is needed to serve the larger subscriber base more effectively,” Snyder said.

Shultz, a Mineral Ridge resident, studied graphic design and photography at Seton Hill University near his hometown of Greensburg, Pa. He started at the Tribune-Review in Greensburg in his youth and rose through the years to senior manager during his career there.

“Actually, I started when I was a kid. I was 12 years old delivering newspapers,” he said.

He left the Tribune-Review in 2000 to take a job with the Eckerd drug store chain as a regional photo training manager, instructing managers on in-store photo development. When Eckerd’s parent company, JCPenney, sold the chain, Shultz joined The Vindicator circulation staff.

He began there as district manager, responsible for a group of carriers. He was promoted to customer service manager then to director of circulation, sales and marketing director.

Through the years and through attrition, he took on other responsibilities, including single copy sales.

Shultz is married with two children, a son in his third year at the University of Toledo and a daughter, a high school senior who was recently accepted to study at Florida Atlantic University in south Florida.

“One of the biggest things I was intrigued by coming here was that I get to continue to help those same customers that I have been helping the last 16 years. I know a lot of the customers by name just by how many times we have talked on the phone,” Shultz said.

news@tribtoday.com