Allen Paschal, who took over as president of Thomson Gale when the company was formed in 1998, has resigned. Paschal had been president of Information Access Company when Thomson merged IAC, Gale Research and Primary Source Media to create Thomson Gale. Charlie Siegel, senior v-p of operations for Gale's parent company, Thomson Learning, has been named acting president until a permanent successor is found. Prior to joining Thomson Learning, Siegel held executive positions with Macmillan and Simon & Schuster.

Paschal's departure comes approximately one month after the electronic reference publisher eliminated 181 positions. At that time, the company said Thomson Gale was shifting some of its resources from the soft library market to the k—12 market. A spokesperson said she wasn't aware if Thomson Gale is looking for someone with more school publishing experience to take the Thomson Gale helm.