By now, most of us have heard of Christian Vanek, the new publisher of The Mountain-Ear. As the paper moves forward with some exciting changes, Vanek thought it’d be nice to keep our readers informed on the paper’s plans and progress.

A lot of the changes Vanek has planned for your local paper is to continue doing what The Mountain-Ear has always done – produce an amazing weekly newspaper for our community, while keeping up with technology and our readers.

When asked what Vanek’s dreams for the paper were, one of his responses was, “Well, I think a Pulitzer Award for Local Reporting sounds nice.”

As a resident of Nederland, Vanek’s first and original goal is to help keep the paper, your paper, locally owned and operated. “It’s part of my larger goal of helping to give back to the local community by supporting the institutions that make up our small mountain town,” Vanek shares.

Originally, Vanek was going to open a mini-arcade in the old Peak Real Estate office by Town Hall, “something to tide over my entrepreneurial urges until the Synder’s Garage location is rebuilt.” Since getting involved with the paper, those plans have shifted, and the old Peak Real Estate location will be renovated to re-open as the Nederland office for The Mountain-Ear this spring.

Vanek’s other hope, aside from a Nederland office, is to grow the staff in a few ways this year (and likely into 2024). More with online content, social media, photography, and video production starting this year. Vanek advises, “Folks should keep an eye out in the paper for job opportunities related to that.”

A new website and mobile app are also in development, taking primary focus for the first few weeks this year, including new tools and services for local business owners. Vanek wants the community to know that “Part of our mission is to provide advertising services and promotion that help our local economy and local artists.”

“I think there’s a lot more we can be doing to promote local artists and local musicians. I think we will really be working closely with this community over the next year,” shares Vanek. This is all part of proving that The Mountain-Ear truly is and has always been YOUR community newspaper.

Vanek’s background is in software development, marketing, and business development – all great skills to help support Barbara Hardt and the rest of the team. Building his first content management system in 1998, at 21, for a company that had hired him to automate their event marketing and registration system.

Building that content system led to the 2006 founding of SurveyGizmo, a Boulder-based software company, which Vanek served as CEO until he left the company in 2018, selling the company in 2022.

Leaving SurveyGizmo has allowed Vanek time to refresh his skills in software and web development. He has decided to come out of his brief retirement to use his skills again to support, according to Vanek, “an amazing local business,” which most of us can agree with. He’s already started to “dig in,” and he confesses to having a blast.

In short, “My focus this year is to work on the website, social media, and video publications. In the first few months of the year, we hope to launch a new website, a new mobile version of the paper, and a new advertising platform for our local businesses. That’ll keep me PLENTY busy for a while.”

Who knows? Maybe by the time 2024 rolls around, The Mountain-Ear will be ready for that Pulitzer Award.

The Mountain-Ear Nederland office is located at 98 W 1st Street. The Central City office is located at 430 Lawrence Street, inside Dory's Dozen. To learn more visit https://www.themtnear.com/. To stay up to date, please follow the paper on social media at https://www.facebook.com/mtnear, where you can also listen to our new and improved podcasts.