Raymond Edward "Ray" Douglas (April 5, 1949 – 29 June 2007), a graduate of
Michigan State University
Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...
, was an executive for the '' New York Times'' and is credited with helping to introduce color to its news pages and to adding new sections in the 1990s.
Biography
Douglas was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and received a Purple Heart during his service in Vietnam. He was a founding staff member of '' USA Today'' and was involved in the design and color systems for the
Gannett Company
Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.USA Today'' was launched in 1981.
He was the vice president for systems and technology for The New York Times Company, of which the newspaper is a part. He later became the corporate chief information officer. Douglas spent most of his career working with the computer systems that helped design and publish newspapers and was deeply involved in 1997 when the paper, making the broadest changes in its format since the 1970s, introduced a wide use of color in advertisements and photographs and added new sections, including separate weekday sports and arts sections. He died on June 29, 2007, in
St. Augustine, Florida
St. Augustine ( ; es, San Agustín ) is a city in the Southeastern United States and the county seat of St. Johns County on the Atlantic coast of northeastern Florida. Founded in 1565 by Spanish explorers, it is the oldest continuously inhabit ...