About us
The Ark is an independent, locally owned subscription newspaper that covers the people and activities of the Tiburon Peninsula, which includes Tiburon, Belvedere and Strawberry.
The paper is published once a week, arriving in our subscribers’ mailboxes on Wednesdays. With newsstand sales and a pass-on factor of 2.36 (to account for more than one person reading the paper per home), The Ark reaches a paid readership of more than 6,000 people. From our subscribers to the residents who pick up the paper at The Ark’s office on Tuesdays so they can get the news early, our readers are devoted to the paper, reading it cover to cover, including the advertisements.
Kevin Hessel serves as The Ark’s executive editor. He joined The Ark in June 2011. Hessel came from the Marin Independent Journal, where he had been since 1999, most recently as assistant news editor, design chief and online editor. He trained in newsroom leadership at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., was a Knight Digital Media Center fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, and he still guest lectures in newspaper design each semester at his alma mater, San Francisco State University.
Hessel heads a dedicated team. On the editorial side, Emily Lavin serves as assistant editor and reports on the community of Strawberry, while Jeff Dempsey is the assistant editor of production — laying out the paper and designing advertisements — and covers education and youth issues, including youth sports. Our other beat reporters include Deirdre McCrohan, who covers Tiburon, and Matthew Hose, who covers Belvedere and peninsulawide crime and public safety — as well a long list of talented writers who contribute on topics from the enviroment to art appraising, finance to features. Copy editor Diana Goodman helps ensure our editorial perfection while also acting as calendar editor.
On the business side, Director of Business & Advertising Henriette Corn joined The Ark in January 2006, managing all operations, revenue and marketing strategies. Accounts Manager Leigh Pagan takes care of subscribers along with classified and service guide advertisers — and the office. Co-owners Alison T. Gray and Arthur H. Kern also serve as co-publishers.
History of The Ark
The Ark was founded in 1972 — with its first regular weekly issue in 1973 — by a group of local Tiburon Peninsula people who were upset with The Ebb Tide, the local paper at the time, for not publishing a promotional article on Ayala Day, an annual Belvedere-Tiburon party that was held on Angel Island. They decided to start their own newspaper, The Ark, which suffered financial difficulties until James B. McClatchy, of the highly respected McClatchy Co. newspaper chain, bought it out of bankruptcy in 1975.
Marilyn Kessler and Barbara Gnoss started at the The Ark in 1979, when it was under McClatchy’s ownership and the editorial leadership of Brad Breithaupt. Breithaupt, now at the Marin Independent Journal, hired both Kessler and Gnoss as feature writers. In 1985, Kessler and Gnoss started job-sharing the editorship, each one working four months working and then taking four months off. The arrangement, which was the envy of the community, allowed both Kessler and Gnoss flexibility to travel.
In 1987, Kessler, Gnoss and Steve McNamara, the former owner of The Pacific Sun, bought The Ark from McClatchy. The Ark enjoyed a productive run under their joint leadership. Kessler and Gnoss bought out McNamara’s share in 1999, continuing their unusual job-sharing arrangement as joint publishers and editors, and enjoying a long partnership at The Ark.
Unfortunately, Gnoss became ill in 2007. When her Ark responsibilities became too great, Judith Wilson took on Gnoss’s editorial role. Wilson (no relationship to Rebecca Wilson) had been at The Ark as a reporter editor since 1998, and special sections editor since 2003. To the dismay of the crew at The Ark and our community, Gnoss passed away in July 2009.
In January 2010, a four-partner ownership group was formed when George Gnoss, Barbara’s husband, sold her stake in The Ark. Alison and Arthur Kern (as AMMI Publishing Co., Inc.) and Judith Wilson joined Kessler as owners. Under the new leadership arrangement, Kessler and Judith Wilson shared editorial responsibilities and Alison Kern joined the team as publisher.
After more than 32 years of writing for and leading The Ark, Kessler retired in February 2011. Her retirement marked the end of a remarkable era under the partnership of Kessler and Gnoss. Kessler sold her stake in The Ark to the Kerns.
Through it all, The Ark crew has been the heart and soul of the paper: filling the pages with excellent articles and photographs, and supporting the editorial content with advertising sales, subscription sales and fast-turn-around graphics.
