20 Under 40 - 1996 Profile: Chris Echols

PRESSTIME

By Presstime Magazine

First Published: December 1996

A few months after hiring on as a staff accountant at The Albany (Ga.) Herald (morning, circulation 32,964), Chris Echols and other finance employees were stunned when the former publisher told them that the controller had quit, giving 30 minutes notice. "Come see me tomorrow if you're interested in the job," Christian R. Schilt said.

Although only 24, Echols talked with his wife, decided to apply, was promoted, and quickly gave his new position a two-pronged focus—getting the department running smoothly and improving staff morale.

He accomplished the latter by holding regular staff meetings to discuss how accounting fit into the newspaper operation.

"It was pretty overwhelming, but I thought I could do the job," Echols says. For months, he worked nights and weekends, reorganizing the business office, debugging incorrectly installed financial software, and improving internal cash controls. The latter even uncovered an employee theft.

"TheAlbany Herald's accounting department is now used as a model" for other Gray Communications newspapers, Schilt says proudly.

Echols hadn't given much thought to working for a newspaper when he answered a blind ad for an accountant. "I always liked newspapers," he says, though he says isn't true of many of his twenty-something friends. "Now that I have a family, I want to know what's going on, in the schools, for example," he says. "Young people will pick up the paper as they get older." He's counting on it.