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What do you do?
I design both covers and inside pages for Part A and the Metro section. I occasionally design the Business section or other special sections or projects, but 95 percent of my time is devoted to Part A and Metro. In addition, I fill in on the National Desk as an assistant national editor about once or twice a month.

Best professional lesson learned at the J-School?
Journalism ethics. Every day at the Journal Sentinel, we struggle with ethical questions that came up both in class and in practical situations at the Missourian and the Maneater. To this day, I can hear my professors' words bouncing around my head.

What would be your best advice to current students?
Three things:

1. Start your career at a small paper or radio station or magazine or TV station, where you can dabble in all areas of your discipline. Then you will learn more about what really motivates you and you can concentrate on that.
2. Most journalists are not in this for the money.
3. Continue your education with professional seminars and workshops. In addition, take courses that focus on technology. Do not expect your employer to develop your skills. That is your responsibility. (I learned this the hard way.)

What are you currently working on?
We are going to move to a completely new computer system and zoning convention in 2004. Most of our efforts now are geared toward that. I also am teaching newspaper design part time at Marquette University.

What do you consider to be your greatest professional achievement?
Two things:

1. Copy editing our Pulitzer finalist series on Vietnam in 1989.
2. Leadership: Changing a disabled man's life by hiring him as a part-time editorial assistant about 10 years ago. More recently, counseling a co-worker who suffers from a personal problem that affects his work.

What are your next career steps?
Learning the new computer system and accompanying technology. Continuing to take seminars in journalism leadership.

What did you want to be as a kid?
As a child, I wanted to work on a newspaper. In high school, I wanted to be a pharmacist, accountant or a journalist. A scholarship to Mizzou made up my mind for me.

What is your secret to success?
My secrets to success: High standards for myself and those around me, plus the foundation of my journalism education at Mizzou. I'm not kidding.