New York ? Hal Ritter, a founding editor of USA Today who helped launch the newspaper’s Money section, on Monday was named business editor of The Associated Press, responsible for global coverage of financial news.

Ritter, who has been acting business editor for three months, succeeds Kevin Noblet, who resigned.

Ritter, 56, began working for AP as a business-side consultant in February 2006 and became director of special projects in April 2007. He was one of the architects of AP’s Money & Markets service.

Ritter joined USA Today three months before its 1982 launch as deputy managing editor of the Money section. He became managing editor of Money in 1985 and moved to the News section as managing editor in 1995. He left the paper in 2004.

Ritter has a journalism degree from Kansas University and an MBA from Stanford Business School.