Patrick Stickel
Courtesy: The Oregonian

For the first time in 42 years, no member of the Stickel family has an executive role at The Oregonian now that Patrick Stickel has retired as its president. The quiet but expected departure also means that the paper will have a different editor, publisher and president next year than it had mere months ago.

In September, publisher Fred Stickel, Patrick's father, retired from a career at the paper that began in 1967, when he brought his family, Patrick included, from New Jersey to Oregon. He came aboard first as the paper's general manager, then president in 1972 and publisher in 1975. Chris Anderson, formerly of the Orange County Register, has replaced him in that position.

Sandy Rowe, who has edited The Oregonian since 1993, is retiring tomorrow. Peter Bhatia, current executive editor, takes her position on January 1.

Patrick Stickel first became president in 1993. No replacement has been announced.

More: Patrick Stickel, president of The Oregonian, retires after long tenure — The Oregonian

UPDATE (12/30, 6:52 pm): To clarify, one member of the Stickel family remains at the publication, though not in an executive role: Bridget Otto, daughter of Fred Stickel, who writes for The O's HGNW magazine. (You may stand down, Blogtown.)

In a video uploaded to OregonLive.com last week, retiring Oregonian publisher Fred Stickel reflects on what he's most proud of:

Professionally, he says he's most proud that he "started knowing absolutely nothing and wound up as the publisher of one of the very major regional newspapers in the country."

"Don't ask me how I did that," he adds.

On the future of print, he says, "I don't think the print newspapers are going to go away. Not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime."

He says, "We are what we are because we're printed and published here in Portland," which he calls "one weird friggin place."

But above all, he's most proud of his wife, children and grandchildren.

Stickel ends 35 years of leading The Oregonian on Friday.

In February 2010, Advance Publications is ending its "no layoffs" policy, which has shielded The Oregonian's newsroom employees from the mass layoffs that have been thinning other newspapers.

Fred Stickel was seen as protecting those employees from the ax.

Recent rounds of buyouts, restructuring, furloughs, pay cuts, pension freezes, health insurance cuts and layoffs of non-newsroom employees were all ways of reducing costs without sending newsroom staff out the door involuntarily.

Still, the paper's newsroom workforce has seen a drop from over 400 to under 300, due largely to voluntary buyouts announced one year ago.

Those buyouts gave workers with over 10 years of experience at the paper a two-year pay and health care package. Those who left have included big names, like managing editor Michael Arrieta-Walden and columnists S. Renee Mitchell, Jonathan Nicholas and David Reinhard, as well as dozens of people who were instrumental to the paper's daily operations.

What will the future hold without layoff protection and without Stickel?

"It's definitely a shock to the system," one employee told OMC. "It's hard to imagine this place without him."

They added, "I know that some are wishing they had taken the buyout."

To All Employees:

The following news release announcing my retirement is being made public today.

Fred A. Stickel, today announced his retirement as publisher of The Oregonian, the newspaper he has led for 35 years.

“I am 87 years old,” Stickel said. “I love this newspaper and the essential role it plays in Oregon and this community. But it is time for me to retire and make way for new leadership. ”

Patrick F. Stickel, The Oregonian’s president and son of Fred Stickel, will serve as interim publisher until a new publisher is named. He has chosen not to be a candidate and will assist in the search and selection of the new publisher.

The newspaper, the oldest continuously functioning business in the state from which it takes its name, won five Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other national awards during Fred Stickel’s tenure as publisher.

“I have worked with Fred Stickel for 56 years,” said Donald Newhouse, the president of Advance Publications, which owns The Oregonian. “In all that time I have never met another executive with his ability to lead, to inspire, to adapt to an ever-changing world. He is unique, irreplaceable and he is my friend.”

Stickel came to Oregon from New Jersey with his wife Peggy and six children in 1967 to be general manager of the newspaper. In 1972 he was named president of the company and in 1975, he was named publisher.

He became deeply involved in the civic life of the community and was named Portland’s First Citizen in 1996. “The health of a newspaper is closely tied to the vitality of the business and civic institutions in the community,” Stickel said. I have been pleased to be involved in so many aspects of community life.”

Of his many civic activities, he considered his work with the Citizens Crime Commission, which helps police, the courts and private groups fight crime, as most rewarding. He was active on the commission for more than 20 years and was its founder and chairman in 1987.

Fred Stickel led the newspaper through technological transformation in all aspects of newspaper production, from hot type made of molten lead to offset presses, from hand-delivered page dummies to the computer age. He was president and publisher of the company when The Oregonian and The Oregon Journal were merged in 1982. As publisher, he saw The Oregonian grow in staff size, quality and reach and fiercely guarded its integrity and independence.

In 1992 he took the unprecedented step of publishing a front page editorial urging Oregonians to vote to defeat Measure 9, which would have inserted restrictions on the rights of homosexuals in the Oregon constitution. “My longstanding religious and moral views as a conservative Roman Catholic are one thing. My lifelong commitment, both in peace and war, to defend and exult in the inalienable rights granted our citizens under the U.S. Constitution is another. This is what I stand for, and this is what Oregon stands for,” his editorial stated. The measure was defeated with 57 percent of the vote.

“To his employees, Fred Stickel represents the soul of The Oregonian,” said Sandy Rowe, who Stickel recruited and hired as editor in 1993. “He is revered for his utter devotion to the newspaper, his loyalty, his unwavering sense of fairness and his candor.” Known also for his willingness to meet with employees, his dapper dressing and Marine-erect bearing, he commands both respect and deep affection among his staff.

“Newsrooms by nature are challenging places filled with creative, sometimes cantankerous professionals often skeptical of authority. A publisher represents the ultimate authority figure for a newsroom. I’ve never known one more beloved than Fred. He is responsible for many of us choosing to be here and for what we have been able to accomplish,” Rowe said.

Fred Stickel’s retirement will be effective Sept. 18 and a national search for his successor will begin immediately.