Nearly a half century ago, he helped guide this newspaper’s conversion from hot type to offset printing. Last week, after overseeing the printing of some 2,400 issues of the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal, he is stepping down.

Charlie Drummond, the Gazette-Journal’s production manager for the past three decades, retired last week after working for the paper for more than 46 years.

A native and lifelong resident of Cobbs Creek, Drummond joined the paper in 1976, right after graduating from Mathews High School. He said he had gotten a call from a friend who had been offered two jobs—one at the now-defunct Hughes Planing Mill at Hudgins and the other at the Gazette-Journal. His friend decided to go with the mill, so Drummond headed over to Gloucester and applied for the job at the newspaper.

Hired as lead press operator by the publisher, the late John Warren Cooke, who “seemed to think I could probably do the job,” Drummond came on at the end of a four-year period during whi...