Jules L. Plangere, Jr.

Jules L. Plangere Jr. is the former publisher and board chair of New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press newspaper. His 50-year tenure with the newspaper began in 1947 and also included posts as president and general manager, secretary, and production manager.

Plangere spearheaded the expansion of the Press’s operations and influenced its philosophy of maintaining the highest standards of journalistic integrity. Under his leadership, the Press won several honors including the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting and the Associated Press Managing Editors’ Award for Public Service. In 1991, Plangere stepped down as publisher but remained board chair of New Jersey Press Inc., the Press’s parent company, until 1997, when he sold his interest to Gannett Co., Inc. Today Plangere continues his zeal for media as an owner of Press Communications LLC, the parent company of several New Jersey radio stations, including “B98.5 FM, The Jersey Shore’s #1 Hit Music Station” and “Great Gold 1410 AM WHTG.”

Also a U.S. Army veteran, Plangere answered the nation’s call of duty and enlisted in the military at the end of his sophomore year in 1942, at the height of World War II. As an anti-aircraft artillery officer, he served in the South Pacific and as an aide to the U.S. Peace Mission in Korea. His military experience is preserved in the Rutgers Oral History Archives. His Rutgers legacy also endures at the Plangere Writing Center in New Brunswick, which he and his wife, Jane, have endowed in order to support the center’s mission of teaching students to discuss complex ideas through clear and powerful prose.

A passionate advocate for Rutgers causes and beyond, Plangere is a former member of the American Newspaper Publishers Association Production Committee and a former president of the New Jersey Press Association. He had also been president of the Asbury Park Area Chamber of Commerce; director of the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce; president of the Welfare Council of Monmouth County; and a board member of the Shore Area YMCA, Monmouth Council Boys Scouts of America, and the New Jersey Society to Prevent Blindness. He is also a life trustee and former chair of the Monmouth University Board of Trustees.