A former top editor at the online news publication MassLive started Tuesday as the head of communications for the state’s secretariat focused on housing, which has found itself at the center of an emergency shelter crisis.
Noah Bombard, who worked at MassLive for the past nine years, will report to former Worcester City Manager Ed Augustus, who Gov. Maura Healey tapped earlier this year to lead the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
The housing department has found itself at the forefront of the state’s efforts to combat suffocating housing costs and manage an influx of migrants that have helped to push an overburdened shelter system into crisis.
Bombard worked his last day at MassLive on Aug. 25. He said leading the outlet’s news department “was an absolute joy and the highlight of my 26 year journalism career.”
“It was gonna take something pretty important to pull me away from that,” he told the Herald. “It was clear to me that when Gov. Healey appointed Ed Augustus as the new housing secretary and then declared state of emergency, we were at a critical moment in time, and that the administration was moving quickly to find solutions. And it’s just an opportunity to be a part of something that I couldn’t pass up.”
Bombard previously worked at the Telegram & Gazette, The Eagle-Tribune, and Community Newspaper Company, among other places. His state salary was not immediately available through payroll records.
MassLive announced a new vice president of content, Ronnie Ramos, last month. Ramos took over for former head editor Ed Kubosiak Jr., who left the company after he was charged with domestic assault. Those charges were later dropped.
The outlet also picked up John Micek, former editor in chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star, as politics editor.