A new chapter for Dublin’s Yankee Publishing Inc.

March 2 marked the start of a new era for Dublin-based Yankee Publishing, Inc., when CEO and President Jamie Trowbridge, grandson of founders Beatrix and Ralph Sagendorph, handed the reigns of the 90-year-old company to Ernesto Burden.

Prior to becoming CEO and President of Yankee Publishing, Burden was running the company’s New Hampshire Group publications, including “NH Magazine,” “NH Home,” “NH Bride,” and “NH Business Magazine.”

Trowbridge will remain on the board, but not as chair.

“It is a different era, because it is the first there will not be anyone from the family involved in the leadership at Yankee, but we are very excited for this new chapter, and we know we are leaving it in good hands,” Trowbridge said.

Yankee Publishing Inc. also publishes the flagship publication, “Yankee,” “The Old Farmer’s Almanac,” and “Family Tree,” a genealogy magazine.

Both Burden and Trowbridge are optimistic about the future of the company, and Trowbridge, who had been at Yankee for 38 years, said he is looking forward to this new chapter in his life.

“I’ve been CEO for 25 years, and I felt like it was time. New leadership will be good for the company. I felt like a change in leadership would shake things and bring new perspective,” Trowbridge said.

Trowbridge held his very first position at Yankee as a teenager, when he had a summer job working for the maintenance department.

“On my very first day, the head of maintenance sent me into a cellar and told me to paint it with sealant. The fumes would have knocked you out in open air, and in the basement it nearly took me down,” Trowbridge recalled. “It wasn’t like today with all the health and safety regulations.”

Trowbridge has worked in most major departments at Yankee — in production, “getting the pages printed,” as director of books and new media, and as publisher of Yankee magazine.

In 2019, Trowbridge and the other owners — all family members — voted unanimously to begin shifting ownership of Yankee to its employees. The company is now an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan), under which employees earn shares and are paid out after they retire or leave.

The transition to ESOP was completed in December 2025.

“That was the last step in the process, and I wanted to see that through before I left,” Trowbridge said. “It feels like the right time for me to exit.”

Burden has been involved in the media industry almost as long as Trowbridge.

“If you count the paper routes I had as a kid, in some ways, I have been working in media almost my whole life,” Burden said. “I won my first computer, a Commodore 20, in 1981, when I was a delivery boy for the Albany Times Union. I always had these two passions, writing, storytelling and programming.”

Burden first came to New Hampshire to work for “New Hampshire” magazine, which was then owned by Maclean Media, and the “Nashua Telegraph and Gazette.”

“Places were looking for technologists who wouldn’t alienate the editorial side,” he said. “I’ve always bounced back and forth between the publisher and VP of digital.”

In 2020, Burden became publisher of the Yankee’s New Hampshire Group publications.

“I came in right before the pandemic. The silver lining of COVID was we got better at technology. We began doing things like adapting more aggressive communications strategies around virtual meetings, we kept the events going, we developed new platforms,” Burden said. “We embraced technology for efficiency, for team building, for collaboration, for events coordination, and for other things that became foundational going forward. The other thing that came out of COVID is that when you learn lessons under duress, they help prepare you for the next challenge coming down the road.”

Both Trowbridge and Burden say the challenges of publishing, including the role of AI, the fragmentation of media audiences, and the cost of print media — including the rising cost of postage — are formidable. Still, they also see a vital role and evolving opportunity for the 90-year-old company.

Burden says he feels publications like “Yankee” and “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” contribute to a sense of common identity, common purpose, and common history, while embracing cultural shifts and changes.

“At one time, people had a sense of a shared story, and a shared, common purpose. People shared a sense of what we are here for, and how we relate to each other. The kind of storytelling we do in these regional magazines connects us to our history and our traditions, but at the same time, we are looking at what is most contemporary in our culture, including the diversity of our culture, and we’re telling tell positive stories about all different parts of our community,” Burden said. “People need that more than ever now, because we’re in a transitional time in our culture. Right now, we are moving from one understanding of who we are, where we came from, and how we interact with the world, and to another.”

Burden is staunchly optimistic as he takes on the role of guiding Yankee Publishing into the future. One of his primary goals is to develop strategic planning around the role of AI.

“The question is, what can we do that’s innovative? Where are the roadblocks, and how do we move them out of the way?” he said. “Last year, as a group, we did strategic planning around AI, and we developed a formal AI policy for the company. We’re looking at how can we use AI in creative ways — for example, how we can make back office functions faster and better so we can use that time for more important things. With AI, the question is, what do we do with it? How do we make it work for us? How do we remain relevant, and how do we use it in ways that won’t damage us and will keep us competitive and moving forward? Every new technology creates a challenge, but also creates an opportunity.”

Trowbridge said the rise of the internet and the resulting decline in print readership have been the biggest changes he has seen since joining Yankee.

“The barrier to entry for mass media used to be very high; now it’s down to nothing. Now we’re competing with one person in their basement. For ‘Yankee’ magazine to still command an audience shows both the strength of the brand and the appreciation people have for the quality of what we do,” Trowbridge said. “There is an appreciation for 90 years of Yankee and 200 years of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, there is still appreciation for the roots of the organization, and there is a sense of trust.”

Burden says that the problems created by the internet also create opportunities.

“The more the internet is filled with things that you don’t know who wrote it, and you don’t know if it’s real, the more it is creating a market for authenticity that did not need to exist before,” Burden said.

Burden is also excited to be taking the helm as the new ownership structure takes shape.

“This is our opportunity to emphasize the transition to an employee-owned organization. What does that mean to us as a company culture? How can we work together as a group to solve some of the fundamental structural problems the media has? It’s an exciting time,” Burden said. “I’m very happy to be here.”