Dear Rumbo Colleagues:
Attached is a press release that will go out later today with important news that affects all of us.
I would have wanted to meet with you all personally this morning, but logistics make that impossible, so please let me write this note as a poor substitute for now.
I will meet with as many of you as I can in San Antonio today, and will go to Houston and the Valley over the course of the week.
We are distributing the press release first to you, because you deserve to be the first to know.
Each of you also will be meeting with your managers this morning.
The short of it is this:
We will transition the Houston and San Antonio Rumbos to weeklies, beginning this week.
Today's paper will by the last Monday one, there will be no Wednesday paper, and the new weekly will begin Friday/Saturday.
The Valley weekly will continue as is.
The new publishing schedule will mean a
In a related other move, CFO Jose Rego has accepted a major personal opportunity for him that allows him to be close to his aging parents in Portugal.
The press release and a Q&A explains most of the changes and the reasons for them in greater detail.
But I want to write this personal explanation directly to you, as I founded this company and have led you until now. I believe totally and wholeheartedly in Rumbo, in Lynne and Carlos, and in the new weekly structure going forward.
We – all of us, including you – tried something very bold, beginning with Spanish-language dailies, and then the three-day-a-week format in Houston and San Antonio.
So, why then the change?
So, why then am I leaving?
First, I am not totally leaving.
After seeing through this transition, I will remain an advisor to the board and a major individual shareholder.
Let me assure you that there is total continuity here.
There is absolutely no internal division or upheaval behind the scenes.
The plan and the management going forward was proposed by me, in collaboration first with Giovanna and Jose, and then with Lynne, before we took it to the board.
A company of three weeklies, under our efficiently integrated systems, simply does not need the size of management structure we have. I have largely accomplished what I set out to do.
The primary goal going forward continues to be growing sales, and Lynne is exceptionally suited to that.
She has 23 years of publishing experience, was vice president for sales at the Houston Chronicle and our sales vice president for the last year.
Lynne also is from Houston, our main market, our new headquarters and home of one of our leading investors, Pinto Partners.
Then there are the personal reasons. My wife and family still live in New York. My wife didn't want to move her business to Texas because the original Rumbo plan to was to keep growing and there was no telling where I would end up.
And there is a final reason.
To those of you who are leaving:
To those of you who are staying:
Un abrazo fuerte a todos,
Edward Schumacher Matos
January 15, 2007