Lead the Center for Cooperative Media, based at Montclair State University, in its mission to grow, strengthen and sustain impactful local journalism in the state of New Jersey. The Center drives collaboration and innovation in the news and information ecosystem for the benefit of citizens of the Garden State. It aims to make New Jersey a laboratory where public interest journalism gets reinvented for a digital, mobile age, and seeks to nurture journalism that is fearless in public service, adept at digital story-telling, agile at civic engagement and dedicated to sustainable practice. That includes training, research, dissemination of promising practices, and coordination of high-impact collaborations. The Center is a grant-funded program of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. More information is available at www.centerforcooperativemedia.org.

Lead an award-winning 120-person Middle Tennessee news operation based in Nashville, one of the fastest-growing and most fascinating metros in the nation. Publications included three daily newspapers (The Tennessean, The (Clarksville) Leaf-Chronicle and The (Murfreesboro) DNJ) and their digital platforms as well as several community weeklies. Designed and launched full newsroom reorganization built to create a centralized production hub, put more focus on a digital transformation, emphasize audience engagement, move news decision-making to a data-based system, and expand investigative reporting and columnist resources. Put great emphasis on reader interaction and community engagement.

Served as chapter advisor at Michigan State University since 2004, including oversight of 6-10 employees annually, chapter of 120+ women, operations of house that sleeps 50 and nonprofit budget of more than $600K.

Chaired the Michigan province for Alpha Chi Omega, which focused on working with six collegiate chapters and their advisors: Beta at Albion College, Theta at the University of Michigan, Beta Epsilon at Michigan State University, Gamma Xi at Western Michigan University, Delta Zeta at Central Michigan University and Zeta Rho at Northwood University. Planned and hosted State Day for all chapters and alumnae and other province-wide educational training sessions and Ritual events.

Re-engineered, directed and trained a team of web producers and editors who ran all digital platforms for the Free Press, including selecting, publishing, optimizing and promoting content across all topics and sections. Lead extensive staff-wide training on use of social media, with emphasis on ethics. Worked as change agent in moving staff to a digital-first mentality and workflow, including creation and launch of centralized digital publishing desk. Selected to be part of small Gannett-wide newsroom innovation team, which culminated in building a creative corporate training program intended to teach journalists how to understand audience, how to understand and act on readership data/analytics, how to market their content and how to deeply connect with their community. Trained the Gannett trainers on how to use Adobe Analytics (formerly Omniture SiteCatalyst) and built reports and dashboards now used in dozens of newsrooms across the country. Video champion for newsroom, leading staff to greatly surpass aggressive annual traffic goals.

Digital content editor for Freep.com, m.freep.com, the Free Press’ smart phone apps and its iPad app. Oversaw and managed engagement and growth on social media, including corporate Facebook pages and multiple company Twitter accounts. Conducted basic and advanced social media, analytics and ethics training. Analyzed and championed use of digital traffic data for staff.

Role expanded with this promotion to put heavier emphasis on real-time audience engagement, and working with staff on using digital traffic analytics and social metrics to make better content decisions. More: http://on.freep.com/1isTWuQ

One of first people hired to help launch innovative, new digital news start-up. Oversaw social media and reader interaction with content, including commenting, social sharing and user-generated content. Lead development of commenting conversation guidelines and moderation. Recruited, trained and mentored Community Contributors who produced content for a dozen lifestyle topics. Edited contributor copy and served as their 24/7 point of contact. Extensive community outreach and speaking engagements. More: http://on.freep.com/1c9HXij

Covered retail, real estate, development, small business, autos and banking. Coordinated annual special economic outlook section. Shot and edited video stories; helped launch newspaper's first weekly video features including small business owner profiles and pet-of-the-week at local humane society.

General assignment business reporter, also covered transportation, aviation, local economic trends. Pitched and wrote Michigan-centric stories to sister news organization USA TODAY.