2025 Spring Conference Agenda Announced

Sunday, May 4, 2 pm
Preconference Board of Directors Meeting

• Chairman of the Board – Call the meeting to order
• Treasurer’s report – Treasurer
• Secretary’s report – Update on venue-related expenses, hospitality suite
• Sponsorship Committee – Update on book, sponsorship and ad revenue, outstanding receivables, undeliverable books, printed programs and poster board
• President – Review spring conference program, speaker intros, and questions for round table discussion
• Executive Vice President – Presentations update
• Vendor Rep – Vendor update and virtual presentations setup / John H
• Board – Other business, Raffle giveaway items

Sunday, May 4, 5 pm
Past Presidents Reception – Open to all registered conference attendees

• Cocktail Hour
• Past Presidents Introductions
• Presentation of slate of officers and directors
• Thank you to vendors
• Welcome Dinner

Monday, May 5
Conference Sessions

• 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. – Continental Breakfast (located in sunroom, near the lobby.)
• 8:00 a.m. – Registration
  Ed Winters, NEACE Treasurer; John Brennan NEACE Secretary
• 9:00 a.m. – Opening remarks / Convocation
  Kurt Charbonnier, Boston Globe; NEACE, President
• 9:15 a.m. – Keynote Address with Shawn Palmer – Publisher
  Daily Hampshire Gazette; Greenfield Recorder; Athol Daily News
• 10:00 a.m. – Topic: Advancements in AI Technologies for Customer Service
  Scott Swanson, Vice President Sales and Client Services, SingleComm
• 10:45 a.m. – Coffee Break
• 11:00 a.m. – Topic: Obituaries; a Legacy of Life (and critical revenue)
  Mark French, Chief Revenue Officer, The Republican/MassLive.com/El Pueblo Latino
• 11:45 a.m. – Lunch provided by NEACE in the Wiggins Tavern dining room
• 12:30 p.m. – Vendor Introductions
• 1:00 p.m. – Topic: Newsletter and Page View Growth, Attracting Paid Subscribers
  Daniel Petty, Director of Audience Strategy, ProPublica
• 1:45 p.m. – Topic: Meeting your audience on their turf
  Teresa M. Hanafin, Audience Engagement Editor, Boston Globe
• 2:30 p.m. – Afternoon Break
• 2:45 p.m. – Topic: Capturing Customer Feedback for Business Benefit: How Advance Local leverages subscriber insights
  Dan Christ, Director Customer Research, Advance Local
• 3:30 p.m. – Raffle Prizes
• 3:45 p.m. – Cocktails and appetizer table
• 4:00 p.m. – Business program starts with introduction of newly elected officers and directors
• 4:15 p.m. – Outgoing president’s farewell speech and presentation of plaque
• 4:45 p.m. – Presentation of block and gavel to new incoming president and then he or she offers their vision for NEACE in the year ahead.

Tuesday, May 6
NEACE Board of Directors Meeting

Scott Swanson
Vice President Sales and Client Services
SingleComm

Scott Swanson is a proven customer contact center senior executive with experience in management, sales, and consulting in the contact center and logistics environment. In his twenty-eight years, he has developed fiscally responsible infrastructure strategies that have enhanced companies’ bottom lines by redeveloping and re-engineering operational and organizational processes. With a keen eye towards analytics, KPI’s and business operations, Scott has produced viable solutions that have made the complex manageable and ordinary for those dependent on them day to day. Scott has performed custom operational and technology solution “makeovers” for many contact centers and logistics centers throughout the United States and Mexico and is sought after for his professional opinion in the areas of telesales and direct response marketing. Scott holds a Bachelor of Arts in Organizational Communication and a minor in Business Law from Arizona State University. He is a sought-after speaker and article writer by many trade associations and publications on the subjects of contact centers and organizational operations. In addition, he regularly participates in lobbying activities in Washington D.C. for industry associations where he speaks to members of Congress and the Senate about regulations that affect the industry (e.g, Net Neutrality and Universal Tax Codes).

Mark French
Chief Revenue Officer
The Republican/MassLive.com/El Pueblo Latino

This session will equip newspaper professionals with effective strategies and best practices for maximizing revenue through obituary listings by optimizing pricing, digital integration and more! Mark is a passionate marketing and advertising professional with a media career that spans nearly 40 years. After earning a BA degree in advertising and business from Penn State University in 1986, Mark embarked upon his career with The Morning Call newspaper headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He left his home in Pennsylvania in 1999 to become the director of advertising for The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield Massachusetts before joining The Republican in September of 2006. Mark currently oversees all advertising and marketing operations as the Chief Revenue Officer for The Republican and its affiliated publications. Mark is an avid sports enthusiast, coach, and fan. He has also had a life-long interest in airplanes and is currently training to earn his private pilot license. Mark’s enthusiasm for career and community are rivaled only by his devotion to his family; wife Stephanie and two daughters; Taylor and Caprina aged 27 and 16.

Daniel Petty
Director of Audience Strategy
ProPublica

Dan leads the organization’s audience team, whose focus is to help ProPublica journalism reach wide, loyal and diverse audiences on and off the organization’s platforms. He was previously director of audience development at MediaNews Group — the parent company of publications including The Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News and Boston Herald — where he worked on editorial strategy, operations and business development and helped build the company’s digital subscription business. Before that, he spent seven years at the Post in a variety of production and editing roles and was a part of the staff that won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for coverage of the Aurora Theater shooting. Since 2017, he has completed several consulting projects with news organizations in Kazakhstan and Sri Lanka at the invitation of the U.S. State Department and the International Center for Journalists. He received a bachelor of science in biology and journalism from the University of Richmond and an MBA with honors from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2022.

Teresa M. Hanafin
Audience Engagement Editor
Boston Globe

Teresa’ s session explores how to use conversational writing and humor to get your readers’ attention and hold it. Teresa Hanafin, a 40-year veteran of The Boston Globe, writes the twice-weekly Fast Forward newsletter, an irreverent look at the news written with a sometimes cheeky tone and too many bad jokes. After spending 15 years on the print side of the Globe in various reporting and editing jobs, Teresa moved over to digital in 1999 to become the editor of Boston.com. In both print and online, teams she led won numerous national and regional awards. She was part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. Today she writes the Fast Forward newsletter and edits the daily Starting Point newsletter. Teresa is a former board member of the Online News Association, has taught at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, and has attended the American Press Institute. A Boston native, Teresa received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English literature from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She previously worked for The Berkshire Eagle and The Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

Dan Christ
Director Customer Research
Advance Local

Dan Christ is the Director of Customer Research for Advance Local Media. He leads a research team which works with multiple stakeholders to develop and execute research studies. The team gathers actionable insights about current subscribers and readers to help shape hypotheses for testing and possible innovation. With three and a half decades in media, Dan is an Eagle Scout who enjoys biking, hiking, and exploring the worlds of whisky, artificial intelligence, and personal technology. In this session, Dan will dive into three pivotal research studies that guided key business decisions at Advance Local, from reimagining the online newspaper’s name to crafting newsletters exclusive to subscribers. By leveraging survey data from subscribers and general readers, he will show how actionable insights helped audience professionals drive growth and engagement in today’s dynamic media landscape.

Shawn Palmer
Publisher
Daily Hampshire Gazette; Greenfield Recorder; Athol Daily News

Before Shawn became publisher of three Newspapers of New England publications, he held leadership roles at D2 Media; The (New London, CT) Day; (Meridan, CT) Record-Journal; The Westerly (RI) Sun; The (Danbury, CT) News-Times; The (Newark, NJ) Star Ledger; and Hartford (CT) Journal. He is an advocate for the newspaper industry supporting organizations like CDNA and NEACE.