SANTA ANA – Aaron Kushner, co-owner of Freedom Communications, resigned Tuesday from all executive duties at Freedom and the Orange County Register.

Co-owner Eric Spitz also stepped down as president and assumed a new role as Freedom’s chairman of the board. He’ll work with the company’s directors and investors.

Rich Mirman, the former casino marketing executive who has run day-to-day operations since October, becomes president and chief executive of Freedom. Mirman also remains publisher of the Register and The Press-Enterprise in Riverside.

Kushner addressed the Register newsroom Tuesday, saying: “It has been a privilege and honor to serve as a leader of this institution. Thank you for hard work, your patience and commitment to the Register.”

Freedom has gone through dramatic changes since Kushner, Spitz and their 2100 Trust bought the privately held firm in 2012, after the company emerged from bankruptcy.

The new owners more than doubled the newsroom staff to add new sections and publications. They also purchased The Press-Enterprise in Riverside in 2013 and launched the Los Angeles Register in 2014.

Their tenure, however, included three rounds of Register buyouts or layoffs, and saw the newly created Los Angeles Register close its doors in September after just five months of publication.

The Register also struggled with newspaper delivery interruptions after a business dispute with former delivery provider, the Los Angeles Times – landing both newspapers in court in an ongoing legal battle.

Kushner, who once described himself as a “mission-driven entrepreneur,” gained national attention in 2012 for his ideas on how to revive the Register and the entire newspaper industry. He espoused an unrelenting focus on a better print product while others saw the future online.

Kushner had never run a newspaper – he was a greeting-card company executive from Boston. But his bold moves initially gave hope to those both inside and outside the organization.

“I do not believe the future of newspapers has to be a negative one,” the 1994 Stanford University graduate said at the time. “I believe that there is a future for newspapers where they grow.”

On Tuesday, Kushner conceded that not all of his initiatives panned out. But he cited successes that include the acquisition of The Press-Enterprise; creating a “Golden Envelope” program that provided nearly $5 million in advertising to local charities; and launching a “Register Connect” program that provides tickets and other benefits to subscribers.

Shortly after the Register’s delivery woes last fall, Mirman stepped in as interim publisher and moved to restructure the Register’s operations.

“My goal is to get the business on a trajectory of growth,” Mirman said at the time.

Mirman, a Freedom investor and marketing executive at Harrah’s from 1998 to 2007, has more than 20 years of experience with multinational companies. After leaving Harrah’s, he served as chief marketing officer of Kerzner International and its staff of 10,000-plus employees for two years. Since then he has operated his own management consulting firm, The Mirman Group.

Mirman now runs the Register’s news and business operations, including sales, circulation, product development and partnerships.

“Five months ago, we developed a plan on how to move forward,” he said Tuesday. “I’m committed to that and confident that plan is going to be successful.”