The new Rogue Valley Times sign at 2 E. Main St. in downtown Medford.

David Sommers, the inaugural publisher of the Rogue Valley Times, has announced he is stepping down from the position and will be leaving EO Media Group, the privately-held, family-owned company that launched the Times early last year after the sudden closure of the Mail Tribune in Medford.

Sommers served in a dual role, as publisher of the Times, and as part of EO Media Group’s executive leadership team, serving as chief revenue officer for the company, which owns and operates over a dozen local newsrooms and publications in Oregon and Washington.

Outside of leading the Rogue Valley Times, Sommers is a member of the Medford Rogue Rotary Club, serves as a recently-elected trustee of the Southern Oregon Historical Society and is a board member of the Downtown Medford Association and The Salvation Army of Jackson County advisory council.

He joined the Times in early 2023, after five years as the chief executive officer of Pacific Community Media and publisher of the Long Beach Post and Long Beach Business Journal in Southern California, previously working as a broadcast news producer and as a marketing, public affairs and communications executive for Molina Healthcare and the County of Los Angeles.

Sommers’ departure coincides with reorganizational changes recently announced among the company’s leadership team. Bend Bulletin publisher and company chief operating officer Heidi Wright has assumed the responsibilities of CEO, reporting to Steve Forrester, president of EO Media Group. Wright will remain publisher of The Bulletin as well. Joe Beach, editor and publisher of the Capital Press, will assume the chief operating officer role.

The company plans on conducting a search for a new publisher. In the interim, Times Revenue Director Brian Naplachowski will serve as interim general manager, with Editor Troy Heie and Circulation Manager Amanda Turkington continuing their leadership roles overseeing the Times newsroom and administrative operations, respectively.

Sommers and his family plan to remain in the Rogue Valley, and he has no immediate professional plans after his tenure concludes at the Times on March 21.