Roxanne Cooper, a veteran of alternative newsweeklies and most recently marketing manager at Stars and Stripes, has accepted the position of director of sales, AAN Executive Director Richard Karpel announced today.

Cooper has more than 10 years’ experience in the alternative newspaper business, including three and a half years as classified director at LA/OC Weekly and three years as classified manager for the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

After she left LA Weekly in January 1999, she started her own firm and served as a consultant and sales trainer for a number of different newspapers. For the last three years she has worked at the military daily Stars and Stripes, where she has been the paper’s marketing manager in Washington, D.C. since August, 2002.

She has also been a featured speaker in the classified stream at several AAN conferences.

“I have absolutely no doubt that Roxanne is the best person we could have hired for this position,” Karpel said.

“I’m pleased to be returning to the fold and look forward to making a positive contribution to the most innovative segment of the newspaper industry,” Cooper said.

Cooper’s primary responsibility will be to help turn around lagging AAN CAN sales. The national classified network, which provides 70 percent of the association’s income, has suffered a precipitous decline in sales since the new fiscal year began in October, 2002.

She begins working at AAN March 17