GILROY
–– Lisa Molina considers it a privilege to continue her work
with Mainstreet Media Group executives Anthony Allegretti and
Stephen Staloch, the new owners of the Hollister Free Lance.
As credit and collection manager for Mainstreet Media’s three
South Valley newspapers, Molina will keep the title she had at the
Merced Sun-Star.
GILROY –– Lisa Molina considers it a privilege to continue her work with Mainstreet Media Group executives Anthony Allegretti and Stephen Staloch, the new owners of the Hollister Free Lance.
As credit and collection manager for Mainstreet Media’s three South Valley newspapers, Molina will keep the title she had at the Merced Sun-Star.
Staloch was publisher of the Merced paper, and Allegretti was president and chief executive officer of Pacific-Sierra Publishing, which owned the Free Lance and the Sun-Star.
“I am really quite honored that I was invited to join them,” Molina said. “That’s a very big compliment.”
Molina will try to collect money owed on past-due accounts and resolve billing issues for The Dispatch, Morgan Hill Times and Hollister Free Lance, working closely with the sales department, she said.
“No question, we have a history of billing issues that placed us at odds with the best interests of our customers. With Lisa’s help, I can assure our advertisers that these issues are being addressed and necessary changes implemented as quickly as possible. Lisa is a master mechanic when it comes to fixing billing problems,” said Staloch, publisher of the three South Valley Newspapers.
Customers, particularly those who purchase advertising, will notice several changes in the papers’ collection practices. Molina said invoices should be correct with the right advertising rates. If a billing mistake does occur, it will be fixed quickly. When an account is unpaid, she said the client can expect to receive a call “almost immediately.”
Molina started in collections in Phoenix, Ariz., for a service called Third Party Collections. A stay-at-home-mom, she was re-entering the workforce after more than a decade.
“I was going through the newspaper,” Molina said of when she saw the job listing. “It said ‘will train.'”
From there, she took a job in Merced working for Cellular One, a wireless phone service provider, in the financial services department before becoming credit and collection manager with the Merced Sun-Star.
“When I started in Merced, they had a lot of billing problems and customer disputes,” Molina said. “Within a relatively short period of time that all went away. It just takes a lot of work to do this kind of thing.”
She hopes to make the same kind of turnaround at the South Valley newspapers. She’ll keep doing her job, she said, as long as it’s still a challenge.
Molina recently moved from Merced to Gilroy with her two daughters Gabrielle, 8, and Ashley, 16.
