Tony Whiting died suddenly last Thursday at the age of 69.

He was chief executive of The Border Mail from 1996 to 2007, a period which saw the firm shift from the Albury CBD to West Wodonga in 1999 where a press hall was built.

The Mott family owned the newspaper at the time and former chairman Robert Mott and board member Jonathan Mott paid tribute to Mr Whiting.

"Tony certainly had vision and the Mott family and Tony always devoted more resources to editorial than any of our peers and that shone out in awards and in the way the newspaper was respected in the community," Robert Mott said.

Jonathan Mott said: "He was great for The Border Mail and he was great for Albury-Wodonga and I both admired and respected him.

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"He joined The Border Mail when the board wanted to plan and progress in the the next generation and he came up with the proposal of buying Wodonga.

"He consummated that and of course the chairman and the board were involved, but Tony was a prime mover."

Robert Mott recalled the shift from Albury attracted some blowback.

"Tony had the vision to go to Wodonga which was quite controversial in those days because Wodonga was the poor cousin of Albury in the 1970s and that has certainly changed," he said.

"He identified a site, which was very suitable and then proceeded to build a substantial press hall."

His successor at The Border Mail, David Bowring said Mr Whiting was key to the shift and the press publishing tens of newspapers.

"He created the print centre into a profit centre which at its height was earning as much money as The Border Mail," Mr Bowring said.

"He got the business to the point where Rural Press and Fairfax got into a bidding war and paid an exorbitant amount of money for it."

Mr Whiting's media career began in 1980 when he joined The Bulletin as an advertising manager.

He later was involved in launching the Good Weekend magazine, publisher at The Australian Financial Review and group general manager at Rural Press.

Mr Whiting recently reflected on how the ill-fated takeover of Fairfax by young Warwick Fairfax in 1987 played out badly, considering the company's previous state.

"At that time, Fairfax was a debt free publisher with a management group keen to expand, even if the family were a little reticent," he told the editor of the Financial Review in a piece to mark that publication's 70^th anniversary.

"In fact I have recollections in 1986-87 of pursuing both The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal with the intent to acquire, obviously without success."

Born at Robinvale, it was Mr Whiting's country roots which contributed to his move to the Border.

He had played football for Rutherglen and Leeton in the 1970s, winning a flag at the latter in 1978.

From 2016 to 2020, Mr Whiting was chairman of Hume Bank and his successor Michael Gobel said the "board and staff will miss him and his contribution greatly".

"He was passionate about Albury-Wodonga as a place to live and do business," Mr Gobel said.

Mr Whiting is survived by his wife of 40 years Ann Marie, children Charles, Edward and Georgia and seven grandchildren.

Originally from Ardlethan in the northern Riverina, Mrs Whiting met her husband on a double date, which was organised by one of his best friends, Border-raised doctor Vic Carroll.

She said Mr Whiting had a wide range of interests, that extended from building his own guitar to playing golf twice a week at the Commercial Albury golf club.

"He had a thirst for knowledge, he would spend hours reading and he had a great desire to get opinions before making his own opinion," Mrs Whiting said.

Amid the COVID outbreak, Mr Whiting had turned his focus to tending the garden on the couple's Thurgoona property.

Mr Whiting's funeral will be on Friday at Albury's Sacred Heart church and it will be streamed, due to COVID, through the Lester and Son webpage.