Zach Thompson, junior in English, will be the new face of the Iowa State Daily.

The Daily’s Publication Board voted to elect Thompson, who ran unopposed, on Wednesday. His official duties as Editor In Chief will begin this summer.

After a lengthy application process and an interview, the board discussed his qualifications.

Previously, Thompson served as a copy editor and worked his way to Copy Chief and Managing Editor, which has been his position spring semester.

He said he felt privileged at the opportunity to apply for the position and commended his predecessor, Chris Conetzkey, senior in journalism and mass communication, for his commitment to the Daily this year.

After discussing the qualities of Conetzkey’s tenure that he enjoyed, Thompson said he would attempt to improve on Conetzkey’s push to increase online readership. He said he wants to have “24-7 budgets” that will challenge the staff to be more prepared. Strengthening communication overall is also one of Thompson’s goals because it is “key to running a newspaper” successfully and producing quality content.

Conetzkey, who sits in on Publication Board meetings, said the group applauded Thompson’s commitment to both improving the content and the individual skills of students working for the Daily.

“The consensus was that Zach works really well with other people, and the real selling point was when Zach talked about how he was able to enable people — like how he has done well working with the designers this year. It’s a constant battle between putting out a good product every day and helping to train people, and simply knowing that fact, that’s the battle you have to face,” Conetzkey said.

Thompson vowed to work to create a working environment that is open and brings in “as many voices to the table as possible” to help the staff and himself make decisions that are in the best interest of the entire product.

“I love enabling people to do what they do,” Thompson said.