Education

Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication, Louisiana State University, 2003
Concentration: Journalism
Minor: Visual Communication
GPA: 3.67

Skills

• Eight years of professional journalism experience
• Proven collaboration, communication and management ability
• Excellent time-management skills and performance under deadline pressure
• Strong understanding of technology, software and search engine optimization

Experience

Boca Raton Reporter
SunSentinel.com, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
December 2010 to present
• Covered community affairs and government in Boca Raton and unincorporated Palm Beach County west of Boca Raton
• Wrote daily breaking news stories and blogs, developed enterprise content from within coverage
• Shot, edited and produced videos and multimedia coverage
• Trained and assisted reporters with video production and editing
• Used social media to communicate with readers, find stories and sources and break news

Business Community Manager
SunSentinel.com, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
August 2009 to December 2010
• Managed web presence, social media networks, blogs and online planning for the business section and subsections
• Trained staff on software, SEO and social media tools
• Grew local traffic by 20%  for business-pathed content

Sports Design Director
South Florida Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
March 2009 to August 2009
• Managed and art-directed up to five designers  to produce daily 10- to 20-page sections on deadline
• Collaborated with editors, reporters, photographers and graphic artists to plan daily coverage, projects and special sections, including an award-winning All-County section
• Helped to establish and maintain visual and typographic style
• Illustrated and art-directed photo shoots for projects
• Trained designers as a CCI superuser
• Assisted in website redesign planning

Business Design Director
South Florida Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
March 2007 to August 2009
• Conceptualized, illustrated and designed daily and weekend Business sections, which received accolades in SABEW’s Best of Business competition
• Contributed to a radical redesign of the paper

Designer, Sunday 1A and Projects
South Florida Sun Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
July 2005 to March 2007
• Conceptualized, illustrated and designed front page and special project presentation
• Collaborated with editors, reporters, photographers and graphic artists to plan presentation, including an award-winning four-section project on  AIDS Orphans in Haiti

Designer
Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington
October 2003 to July 2005
• Designed 32-page weekly entertainment tabloid, features sections and front page
• Researched and created infographics and illustrations
• Edited copy for grammar, spelling and usage errors.

Design Intern
The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon
Summer 2003

Visual Journalism College Fellow
Poynter Institute, St. Petersburg, Florida
Summer 2003

Design Intern
The Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon
Summer 2002

Designer, editor, reporter, columnist
The Daily Reveille, LSU, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2000-2003

Technical knowledge

Software: Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint), Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Flash, Premiere, Dreamweaver), WordPress, Final Cut Pro, iMovie

Other: HTML, CSS, SEO training

Accomplishments

• Awards from the Society for News Design, Society for Professional Journalists, Florida Society of Newspaper Editors, SPJ’s Sunshine State awards, Top of the News and Reader’s Choice contests

Professional associations

• SPJ South Florida Pro Chapter, Board of Directors

References available upon request.