Digital and Print Media

Greetings. Thanks for dropping in.

I started my working career the day after college as a rookie reporter at the Mount Vernon Daily Argus, a newspaper long gone from that densely populated Westchester County, N.Y., city. If it was a great news town, the living wasn't easy.

I soon moved next door to Yonkers for another reporting job, having just married my lovely wife, the former Marsha Reeves Wyatt. Our apartment had a spectacular view of the Palisades across the Hudson River. It wasn't long before our car got stolen, on her birthday. Later, down the block, the cops arrested David Berkowitz. Yes, the Son of Sam. I helped cover that story.

Reporting crime and local government led to editing. This was the '70s, and it was a good time to get out of New York. Roanoke, Va., has been our home since.

At The Roanoke Times, I held a variety of editing jobs: copy editing, assignment editor, page designer. When desktop personal computers became available, I developed programs to extract all sorts of information reporters otherwise could not have learned. This was the day of 9-track reel tape and hex code on an IBM 386 PC. It was not fun.

When the Internet started to happen, I wrote The Roanoke Times' first website. In html on Notepad. I worked with the paper's programmers to automatically display classified ads, news and sports stories on the site every day. Virginia Tech football fans loved it. We were one of the first papers in the country to use automation instead of copy/paste by hand.

Since then, I managed The Roanoke Times' website, roanoke.com. We won lots of industry awards. Whether we furthered good journalism on the web in the eyes of readers is anybody's guess.

Anticipating the day my employer would substantially reduce its staff, I've freelanced as a WordPress developer, copywriter, search engine optimizer and hosting specialist.

Other stuff:

I think baseball is the only example of human perfection.
The Blue Ridge Mountains and its valleys are an excellent place to ride a bicycle mile after mile.
Our marriage has survived Yonkers to this day. We have two daughters.
I taught a guy how to read -- so that he could read to his young daughter.

The facts:

Information Technology Manager, Editor, Developer.

Solutions-oriented editor with notable success directing a broad range of Internet initiatives in news, sports and entertainment while participating in the planning and implementation of continuous content improvement and innovation with business objectives in mind.

Track record of increasing responsibility in development of newspaper websites.
$6 SEO keywords that say I'm a problem-solver: Requirements gathering, process modeling & improvement, interface/user experience analysis, customer service, system functionality, account setup and customization, pre-deployment testing, user training and documentation, participatory design.
Demonstrated capacity to conceive and implement audio, video, text and photographic modules that drive audience participation, traffic and retention.
Hands-on experience in leading stages of development efforts, such as requirements definition, design, wireframing, web page architecture, programming, testing, support.
Outstanding leadership abilities. Able to direct phases of team-based efforts while managing, motivating and leading projects.
Have developed effective policies and procedures, project documentation and milestones, and technical/business specs.

Core Competencies

Writing, Editing, Wordpress, PHP, Team building and management, website hosting management & email configuration, Deming's principles of Total Quality Management, Research & Development, web authoring programs. Elicitation, process modeling & improvement, interface/user experience analysis.

Professional Experience

THE ROANOKE TIMES, Roanoke, Virginia
Internet editor

Instrumental in making the newspaper its region's leading information provider via the Internet. Introduced the newsroom to the web in mid-1990s and was its top content editor for 10 years.

I am able to talk the talk of the programmer, then translate that language so the the customer can understand, finally fitting the code to the customer's software needs.

My experience as a freelancer and unofficial newsroom liaison between software users and technical staff includes the following customer service skills:

Key Contributions

Introduced The Roanoke Times to the Internet. It was among the first U.S. papers to publish on the web. My vision for the newspaper to have an online presence enabled it to become the No. 1 portal in the region.
Led newsroom's introduction, development and transition to Internet publishing; managed modifications to in-house content management system such that those of lesser IT skills could run a website.
Implemented WordPress as a content management system for more than two dozen reporters and editors; was accountable for each feature of system functionality, work flow design, account setup and customization, pre-deployment testing, user training, software documentation and ongoing and relationship management.
Requirements gathering using interviews, document analysis, existing requirements documentation, business process descriptions, use cases, scenarios, business analysis, task and workflow analysis. Critically evaluated information gathered to distinguish user requests from the underlying true needs.
roanoke.com winner of several major industry awards
Initiated automated alternatives to copy/paste publishing
Skilled in PHP programming, WordPress, MySQL, cPanel, web authoring programs such as Adobe Creative Suite, CSS, HTML, Office Suite, working knowledge of C# and database design
Video production
Built new entertainment audiences on the web in New River Valley