By Town Crier Staff Report

Chris Post, advertising services director for the Los Altos Town Crier, is celebrating 25 years with the paper this week, maintaining a steady professional presence through numerous ownership changes.

Described by co-workers and clients alike as steady, unflappable and the virtual glue that holds things together, Post can be seen on many a frenzied Monday deadline day on the phone with advertisers going over corrections, typing up legal ads, handling ad layout, coordinating paste-up and cooling hot heads. She also does the billing for the newspaper and the sometimes unpleasant task of collecting on late clients.

Current Publisher Paul Nyberg said hiring Chris was his first step toward creating order out of disarray when he first bought the paper back in March 1993.

“Eight and a half years ago, the Town Crier had been summarily shut down at 10 a.m. one bleak March Friday morning and all the staff laid off,” Nyberg recalled. “Twenty-four hours later, we negotiated a purchase of the paper from the Tribune Company in Chicago. The moment we took over official ownership of the Town Crier at about 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 17, 1993, the first thing I asked the former publisher was, ‘What do we do first?’ and he said ‘Hire Chris Post.’

His ‘what to do first’ was right on the money. By 4 p.m. that same Saturday afternoon, Chris was back on the job. As ad services coordinator, her job was to construct the layout of the paper each week, placing all the ads with space for articles and editorial material. No one else knew this task like Chris.

“Chris’ position as ad services manager is critical to the financial success of the Town Crier,” said advertising manager Susan Glaze. “After selling an ad, our sales reps then turn in the layout to Ad Services where Chris logs it into our weekly schedule and turns it over to our Production department. When the ad is finished, it is given back to Chris to proof before the final version is given to the client.

Chris started work with the Town Crier in 1976 with Suburban Newspaper Publications. Mort Levine, now publisher of the Milpitas Post, headed operations.

Levine said Chris played a vital role in coordinating ads across five offices and 16 newspapers that ranged from Los Altos to Milpitas, as part of a three-person department.

“She was always very cheerful and competent,” Levine said, “and very quickly adapted.”

Year after year, through myriad staffing changes, Chris has been on hand to see through successful production of the paper. Some of the paper’s clients have had long associations with Chris. They admire her approach and abilities.

“She’s always there,” said Kathy Smith, administrator for Coldwell Banker in downtown Los Altos. Smith, who has worked with Chris the past eight years, said, “There are times when I slide in changes at the very last minute, but she always helps me out.”

Yolanda Knezevich, an administrator with Alain Pinel Realtors in Los Altos, said Chris was “very friendly” to do business with, but noted she was courteous away from work as well.

When I was sick (on two occasions), both times, she called me and sent me a card,” Knezevich said. “She went out of her way.”