Hanging up the daily reporter's hat

It’s time for a change.


Beginning Sept. 20, I’ll hang up my News & Messenger reporter hat for a job developing websites and producing video for businesses.

I am very excited about my new endeavor, and it will be a new and welcomed challenge for me much different from chasing the news each day.

For the past four years I have worked at the offices of News & Messenger, starting when it was still the Manassas Journal Messenger. I worked in the advertising department, helping businesses market themselves to the community they served.

From there I took an unusual turn, accepting a smaller paycheck and following my passion back into the news business - where I had started in TV many years before - to a weekly paper in Stafford County affiliated with News & Messenger, the Stafford County Sun.

It was there, and after my transition to the Potomac News in Woodbridge, that I quickly learned how to paint a picture with words, and how to ask specific questions to tell the story – unlike my days in TV where we often asked “how does this make you feel?”

While at News & Messenger, I have been privileged to cover so many different people who care about the community in which they live and serve.

That community is the same place that I call home.

During my time at News & Messenger, I've written bad stories, good ones, stories that you think and ones that made you want to help others during a time when so many people these days need some kind of help.

I’ve also been honored to work with some of the most passionate people in the business, all dedicated to not only getting the news of the day but looking for the local angle of each story, explaining why and how the story affects the reader.
More than a learning experience, it has been an adventure that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

I’ll be around from time to time, keeping a presence on the Web, writing about what matters to our community and featuring the voices that make it whole.

I’m a journalist at heart, and there will always be a story to tell.