Girl Journalist

We live in San Francisco with our dog, Cody aka “Monster.” Hubby works for Mochi Media, I work for Lucas Online. Dog is currently unemployed. If you want to know more, read on…

Many years ago, in a Kansas town far, far away from San Francisco, I sat with my dad in the darkroom he built in our basement. I was nine or ten years old. I happily inhaled the toxic chemicals without thinking twice. I watched for hours as my dad “burned” and “dodged” his photos, creating artsy images of my sisters and I in black and white.

I guess you could say I come from a long line of creative artists who have experimented with new media. My great-great-great grandfather “Dad Martin” was one of the first people to create and distribute “Tall Tale Postcards.” I also recently discovered that he had a foray into film, creating short stories that were viewed on a steroscope. [insert scan here]

In middle school, I discovered the power of the “press pass” which enabled me to roam the empty halls during fifth hour going in and out of various classes as a reporter for the newspaper. [insert scan of press pass here]

I started my journalism career writing Q&A’s, interviewing students, teachers and administrators. I wrote a book review or two. I think I also covered Student Council (although I was a little jaded against student government simply because my creative election campaign “Don’t be Spacey, Vote for Staci” had completely back fired and it took more than a year to recover my name). In the end, I have a ton of great memories about junior high newspaper staff. I made some good friends and I had some great times in our “newsroom.”

Then I got to high school. I enrolled in photography, art and journalism classes.

My sophomore year, I decided to sign-up for yearbook staff with a couple of my friends. I wrote stories, picked photos and designed page layouts. I loved designing page layouts, choosing photos and writing witty headlines. However, my cutting edge style did not impress my adviser and I grew tired of arguing over the “rules.”

The next year I switched to the newspaper staff. Same adviser, different medium. I wrote stories, did some music and movie reviews, designed pages and helped redesign the flag.

My senior year, I was appointed Assistant Editor, I was pretty irritated that the adviser had made me Ass. Ed. and not THE Editor. But now I realize it was probably for my own good. After all, the Editor is more of a figure head and the AssEd/ME is usually the one down in the trenches running the show. I stayed after school every Thursday to put the newspaper together.

My senior year, I also began working more with advertising, designing ads and writing copy for local businesses. It was then decided I wanted to be in advertising.

After high school I enrolled at the University of Kansas and declared myself a pre-journalism major. I jumped in with both feet - I joined the University Daily Kansan creative staff building ads for the newspaper. I also begged my advisors to let me take senior-level journalism classes and got an internship at a local real estate agency.

I helped the real estate agency research and purchase computer equipment to develop their own, in-house ad agency. It was a two man show, with me and a designer I hired designing, writing and producing everything from business cards and letterhead to mailers and ads for the newspaper.

I begin working more and taking fewer hours. School was becoming a drag. The final straw was a senior-level advertising class. I loved Professor Tim Bengtson, but I was in over my head working with a bunch of seniors. I think they always saw me as a little weird, eccentric… one of the last classes, Professor Bengtson wrote on the blackboard three things we would need in order to be successful in the world of advertising. Number three killed my desire to major in advertising: Learn to play golf. Long story short, I hate golf. I think it is the most boring game on this planet, and yes, I played it. My dad would drag my sisters and I out to the golf course at least every other weekend while I was growing up. Ugh. BOR-ing. That was it. I said “I’m out.”

I realized I was wasting a lot of money and time so I started looking for a full-time job. I took my dad’s advice and applied for a job working at a computer store in Kansas City.

During the late ’80’s early ’90’s my dad had gotten into computers. I’m pretty sure he owned every Mac ever sold. Starting with the Mac Portable he bought while he was still working as a lobbyist for the Kansas Petroleum Council. In 1992 my dad quit his job and begin programming full time. He worked out of his basement (we nicknamed it “the cave”) in the dark for hours and hours, hunched over the keyboard hacking away. To his credit, dad was able to develop, market and sell several games between 1992 and 1998. But when the internet became mainstream and Windows 98 hit the market, dad refused to learn new languages and systems and he quickly became obsolete.

Elek-Tek changed my life forever. It was at Elek-Tek that I met my geek mentor, Gary. Gary would spend hours with me in a back corner of the store patiently explaining how RAM worked. Granted, I was way behind the curb, most boys my age had been hacking away on their Commodore 64s for years before I learned how to use a command prompt. But, I was eager to learn and I asked a lot of questions. Due to the fact that I pretty much refused to sell PC’s and I spent a majority of my time talking to Gary and the techs in the repair shop, I held the store record for low sales several months in a row. Instead of canning me, they decided to “promote” me off the floor and contract me to American Century Investors. I was told I would be installing mice and keyboard, but on my first day, Derric handed me a stack of hard drives and pointed me to some desktop boxes. “These need ghosted,” he said. I spent days installing hard drives and building Windows 95 machines. At American Century, I learned about CICS, terminals, telnet, SSH and a slew of other geeky things. After about nine months on the job I decided I wanted to go back to school and get degree in computer science.

It is here I should come out.

So here it is, I suck at math. I don’t do fractions or long division. I count on my fingers and I get confused by measuring cups. I flunked 000 dummy math. Twice. There, I said it. It’s out.

So majoring in computer science was probably not the wisest decision I ever made. But somehow I managed to talk the comp sci advisors to let me enroll in Calculus I and C++ during SUMMER SCHOOL. I also got a job in the engineering computer lab working with PCs, Macs and Sun workstations. I was so cool, in a totally geeky way.

I barely passed my classes. Thanks to my TA, Darius, I eeked by calc. It was painful, but somehow I had survived. So what if I chain smoked in my dark bedroom until 4 AM, hovering over a terminal window trying to write a C++ currency calculator.

Skip ahead to 2001. I was living in Seattle. I graduated from the University of Phoenix with a degree in Business/Information Technology. My technical skills had gotten me thru the door and in to some interesting jobs including:Technical Analyst at a start-up, Support Technician for the USPS, Online Producer at an ad agency, trainer at the USPS and Technical Support Analyst for a biotech.

Not bad for someone who sucks at math.

While mulling over my resume one day, I realized that my helpdesk background was branding me as something I could never be, and would never want to be anyway. I needed something to round out all the technical training and experience; something to prove I was different from the other geeks. Given my personality, I could never be content just working in tech support.

I am a people person, someone who values people above all other things. It is important for me to listen to people, really understand and communicate their needs. When you work on the helpdesk it is all about quantity, not quality. The more problems you can solve, the more trouble tickets you can close… and most IT professionals are task-oriented individuals. I am better at creating relationships with end-users than I am at quickly solving technical problems.

It was my last technical support job, and a family tragedy, that made me realize that I wanted to return to my roots, both physically and mentally.

I decided to relocate to Kansas. When I first started contemplating a move to Kansas, I thought about pursuing an MBA. But, after working at the University of Kansas in the J-School lab for a semester, I decided to take a different path, and I applied for the journalism program instead. After all, the professors and staff were people I really respected. Why not try the journalism thing again?

A lot has changed. The possibilities for journalism and journalists are endless; especially for someone with a slightly technical background and a taste for breaking the rules and living on the edge. It is my belief that technology should work for the end-user. And, I realized that I offer a unique skill set because I am able to translate and communicate technology to non-technical people.

After completing my graduate coursework I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee to join my sweetie, Jay. I had hoped to land a job at the University of Tennessee or E.W. Scripps.

I met Dr Jim Stovall at the University of Tennessee in September 2006. There are many people you will meet in your life and your career and sometimes you know right away when you click. Dr Stovall and I clicked. We share many of them same philosophies about new media and journalism. That fall, I was lucky enough to work with Johnny Dobbins to help Dr Stovall build the Tennessee Journalist website (TNJN.com).

TNJN.com is the website for the University of Tennessee Journalism and Electronic Media department. It is 100% student operated, with content created by students in JEM classes as well as volunteers and TNJN staff. In some ways, I guess you could say it was my baby. And I couldn’t be more proud of how my baby has grown up. There is nothing more satisfying then to see the work the students are doing.

But this guy named Art Lenehan kept contacting me about a job opportunity with MSN Money in New York. New York! I always wanted to live in big city. And New York is THE big city. Who would turn down an opportunity like that? Besides, this job intrigued me. MSN was experimenting. There was a small team of multimedia journalists already in place and Art wanted me to come work with them. When I finally met Art (he drove to Knoxville to talk to me about the job) I knew I had to go. I liked this guy. I liked the way he talked and the things he said. So, I packed my bags and headed to the Big Apple. However, my relationship with Jay was really important, and I guess I always knew something would have to give.

I was in New York a mere four months, but I loved every minute of it. If I could’ve convinced Jay to move I would’ve stayed. But he wasn’t ready to leave Scripps. Then, rather suddenly, I found out about a job opening at Scripps. It’s funny where and when opportunities pop up.

At E.W. Scripps I worked for Eleanor Cippel in a little division carved out by the company’s Entrepreneurial Fund. As project manager, I helped take ideas for new businesses from employees at our newspapers, put together business plans and implement the ideas. Some of the “start-ups” I helped launch include: Knoxmoms.com and the iMoms.com network, WagNBrag.com and Rootclip. I worked with amazing entrepreneurs who were able to accomplish amazing things and overcome a variety of start-up-like challenges.

In October 2007, Jay accepted a job with a start-up called Mochi Media in San Francisco. Of course, I was not far behind. In January 2008, I started my new position as Senior Internet Marketing Manager in Lucasfilm’s online division.

The title is great, but what do I really do?

I manage day-to-day tasks, like where’s that mp3 of the Stormtrooper’s blaster? Can someone please approve the Lightsaber animation for the homepage? Let’s build a site map and discuss the content we can get from the developers… but I also get to help shape the future of LucasArts online presence and the overall strategy for our game websites. How do we build a fan base like starwars.com and a community around our newer titles?

I’m not helping promote world peace or fighting for our First Amendment rights, but I am working for an organization that is known for its innovation, creativity and technology. And, I think I’m doing something pretty cutting edge and cool with my journalism skills

Want to know more about my education, professional experience, awards and recognition then take a look at my resume.