The Colorado Springs Independent has promoted Carrie Simison-Bitz to general manager:

She takes over the GM duties from Fran Zankowski, who joined the Independent in 2005, first as a visiting publisher, then as a consultant and finally as CEO/general manager.

With this current transition to just CEO, Fran finally assumes the job he was actually hired to do seven years ago. His new focus will be to develop and implement long-term strategies that continue to grow the newspaper.