WCAA Leadership

President
Nate Rodriguez
Director Multimedia Adv. & Training
Ventura County Star
550 Camarillo Center Dr.
Camarillo, CA 93010
805-437-0389
nrodriguez@venturacountystar.com

Nate got his start at The Commercial Dispatch, where he was repeatedly recognized by the MS Press Association. From there, he went to work for The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo. He has worked for ASP Westward communications, based out of their corporate headquarters in Houston, Texas, where he represented the Automotive Category on the corporate level. He has also worked in Nashville, Tenn., for The Nashville Tennessean. He later found a home at The Ventura County Star, where he was soon promoted to Director of Multimedia Advertising and Training. Nate’s past positions at The Star included Classified Director and Sales Training Director and currently he is responsible for local Retail, Digital and Classified revenues. He is a leader in online revenue generation, examples include VCSTEXT4MORE, an SMB mobile marketing advertising opportunity, and a complete overhaul of the classified rate structure. In both examples, these strategies have been adopted by the entire Scripps Newspaper division. VCSTEXT4MORE’s new online revenues total over $1 million and the classified rate strategy brings in $250,000 annually. He has received national recognition for Mobile innovation from Editor & Publisher®. Nate is the 2011 Scripps Sales Leadership Achiever of the year.

Cindy has a passion for newspapers and advertising. With over 30 years of industry experience, she has worked in classified, retail and national sales. As Director of Advertising, she is responsible for national advertising sales and increasing revenue in all Wick locations. Cindy is also an active member of the Local Media Association.

Carla has worked in the newspaper industry for over 25 years. Her experience spans both Community and Metro papers and includes roles in Adverting Sales Management for both Retail and Classified advertising divisions. She currently oversees print and digital sales for Real Estate and Recruitment teams at The Denver Post.

Lana has been in communications for over 30 years. She has worked as Promotions Director for the Los Angeles Times’ Community Newspaper Division, the Manager for PR Newswire in the San Francisco Bay and as the editor of LA Reader. She is a principal of Johnson Media, a full-service public relations and media firm.

WCAA Treasurer, WCAA Past President
Bill Cummings
Director of Advertising
The Statesman Journal
A Gannett Company
280 Church Street NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-399-6648
bcummings@gannett.com

WCAA
Bill Cummings 
2470 Reindeer Ave NW
Salem, OR 97301
info@mywcaa.com

Bill Cummings is currently leading a sales organization for Gannett as the Director of Advertising for the Statesman Journal, Oregon’s capital city newspaper. Under Bill’s leadership, his team provides a full-range of digital marketing services in addition to the full reach of a traditional newspaper. Those marketing services include website design, email marketing, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization and digital display advertising.

Cummings previously served as senior director of advertising for Freedom Communications Inc., based in Santa Ana, Calif. He oversaw advertising for 37 markets in 11 states. Prior to that, he was director of real estate advertising for The Denver Post and real estate advertising manager for The Fresno Bee. Cummings also ran an advertising agency in Fresno for 18 years.

Bill’s long and lustrous career began at The Madison Avenue Group, Inc., one of the largest advertising agencies in central California. There, he represented products and firms such as David & Son’s, Nestle, Dole, NIBCO, PEPCO and the State of California’s Department of Education. He then turned his focus to real estate, taking a position as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at London Properties, Inc. He oversaw the in-house marketing efforts and the recruitment of sales associates at this real estate firm, which represented homes in the Fresno/Clovis/Madera areas. He then shifted gears and took his love of real estate and advertising to the newspaper industry, and was quickly offered high-level positions in the real estate vertical.

Bill is often a keynote speaker at newspaper, real estate and automotive events. He is known for turning around under-performing leaders, divisions and products, and has developed his Power of 5 selling metrics for newspaper organizations.

Leslie has spent 18 years working with the Clovis News Journal in a variety capacities, including bookkeeping, retail and niche product sales. Her various roles have given her a greater understanding of the many faces of newspaper sales. She also has significant experience organizing special interest events in her community.

Deitra is the Director of Advertising for The Record newspaper in Stockton, Calif. A 31-year newspaper sales veteran, her career originally started in1981 as a production clerk. She moved to the advertising department in 1985, where she worked various sales and management positions in classified and retail, earning numerous sales awards along the way. In 1999 she was named Director of Advertising for the Tracy Press newspaper in Tracy, Calif. She returned to the Record in 2005 where she oversees all print and digital advertising.

Trixi Agrios is responsible for the print and online classified business for the 32 community British Columbia newspapers of the Glacier Media Group.

During her career, Trixi has successfully held positions in Retail and National Sales, Marketing and, more recently, Classifieds with CanWest Global Communications, Postmedia Network and the Glacier Media Group.

Trixi has a proven record of delivering innovation with a strong customer focus and leads teams to produce award-winning publications resulting in multiple newspaper awards for best classifieds sections, promotions and design.

Prior to that, Trixi was the Director of Provider Sales for THINQ (now SABA) an industry leader providing e-learning solutions, talent management and unified learning platforms.

Trixi lives with her husband Micael and Nikki the Dog in North Vancouver, British Columbia.

WCAA Director
Michael Mayer
General Manager
Automotive, Real Estate, Recruitment and General Classifieds
Dallas Morning News
508 Young St.
Dallas, TX 75202
214-977-8654 | P
303-946-8751 | M
mmayer@dmnmedia.com

Michael Mayer is currently the General Manager of Classified Advertising. He manages Automotive, Real Estate, Recruitment and General Classified Advertising, with responsibility for all solutions offered by The Dallas Morning News and its portfolio of digital partners. Michael is responsible for developing new go-to-market sales strategies, existing product maximization and sales leadership for all classified advertising teams. When Michael was hired in January 2009, he was the Director of Recruitment Advertising, and in January 2010 was named the General Manager of Recruitment Advertising. In 2010, his role expanded to include Real Estate and General Classifieds. In February 2013 his role expanded to include responsibility over the Automotive category.

From November 2006 through January 2008, Michael was the President of ME2V, LLC. Michael was responsible for development and implementation of collegiate credit card marketing with Citibank, Chase and U.S. Bank. Michael also served as the lead marketing consultant to newspapers offering mobile, online, direct marketing and commercial printing solutions in retail, real estate and recruitment advertising.

From November 2003 through November 2006, Michael was Director of Recruitment Advertising for the Denver Newspaper Agency, publisher of The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News. In this role, Michael was able to successfully double recruitment advertising over a three-year period by implementing new online and print initiatives. Michael was named Director of the Year in both 2004 and 2005. In 2005 Michael was appointed to the executive leadership team that developed Yourhub.com for the Denver Metro area focusing on community journalism.

From November 2000 through November 2003, Michael was the Classified and Direct Marketing Manager for the Lincoln Journal Star, a division of Lee Enterprises. Michael was responsible for all classified advertising, direct marketing/commercial printing and managed 14 niche publications. In this role Michael managed inside AEs, outside AEs, online AEs, sales support, creative teams and the niche publication sales teams.

Michael has spent the past 21 years diversifying his background in Newspaper and media solutions. His experience includes newspaper, commercial printing, niche publications, preprints, direct marketing,mobile and a broad background in digital solutions.