The Washington Business Journal
I followed the biotech industry in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia metropolitan region, writing about new and existing companies with promising scientific products that could one day revolutionize medicine and agriculture. This job included assignments for the newspaper's quarterly magazine. One of my pieces was a story on the mapping of the Human Genome. This included an interview with James Watson, the molecular biologist and co-discoverer of the DNA structure. Also, covered legal affairs and business. One of my favorite features: a Ugandan immigrant who waited patiently at his newly opened convenience store for the proposed convention center in downtown D.C. to open across the street. He expected the center to attract many customers to his store. Unfortunately, his business folded before ground was ever broken.
​
Roll Call
Ronald Reagan started his second term as president when Sid Yudain agreed to hire me. It was a unique little newspaper (still is), covering Congress as a community, which it is, despite the partisan bickering. Sid couldn't pay me much, so I took a second job, waiting tables across town at night. It was an interesting experience the first six months (before Sid sold the paper to Arthur Levitt, then president of the American Stock Exchange). I interviewed congressman and senators during the day and sometimes served them food at night. One or two salons did a double take, but said nothing. Sid generously shared his wisdom, usually with a bark, but I gained quite a bit of insight into national government and politics as well as the politics and business of journalism.
THE PENNSYLVANIA YEARS
Franklin & Marshall College
News editor and media liaison representative for this four-year liberal arts college started in 1787 in Lancaster, Pa.
​
Editor and Publisher​​​​​​
In 2008, My wife and I along with a business partner launched a community newspaper, TheBurg, in Harrisburg, Pa. My role was that of any local newspaper publisher: editor, writer, photographer, circulation manager and deliverer. This free monthly publication reached an estimated 44,000 readers in five counties. We sold the paper in January 2013.
​
Columnist
For three years, starting in 2005, I wrote a monthly column on government and politics for Harrisburg Magazine.
​
Journalist
At the turn to the 21st century, I went to work as reporter and a co-editor for Capitolwire.com, the first online news service in Pennsylvania. We provided in-depth news coverage on government and politics. I assisted with designing the website’s editorial content.
​
Associated Press
Statehouse and general assignment reporter. I not only covered governors and legislators, but news features such as Amish gangs, a deadly bus crash and a factory explosion.
​
The York Daily Record
This little paper has a distinguished history of past editors who fought the local governments in order to ensure needed information reached the public. The usual beats—government, politics, cops, education—but my specialty was the religion beat, writing about faith in people's lives such as how church-going traditions have slowly slipped away, the emergence in the local conscious of the practice of Islam, and why some Jewish families also celebrate Christmas.
​
Freelance Writing
News and features for newsletters, newspapers and websites including The New York Times, Stateline.org, Reuters, Philadelphia Daily News, Wilmington News Journal, Central PA Magazine, Harrisburg Magazine and Harrisburg Patriot-News.