Prepared for all aspects of leadership: budgeting, staffing, planning and producing results
I have spent my career building my skills and preparing for future opportunities. Here are some roles that have helped me prepare:
-- I worked in Sports at USA TODAY for two years coordinating the Olympics coverage for Barcelona and Lillehammer. I was responsible for all logistics and the full-page graphics that appeared in the 18-page daily bonus sections during the Olympics.
-- I coordinated big projects such as the pages of election returns and our annual obituary page. I won a paper-wide award for working with AP to develop a special wire feed that delivered the returns we needed more quickly and accurately.
-- I was in charge of administration and the library and oversaw a $2 million budget that I learned to use very prudently. Under my supervision, we moved researchers out of the library and "imbedded" them in departments, an efficiency that allowed us to reduce library staff by seven. I was able to talk most outside experts to speak at USAT University, my in-house training program, for $200. Many of them, such as Cal Ripken, agreed to appear for free. This enabled me to send more staffers to Poynter, API, IRE and other training opportunities.
-- I have hired and fired staff.
-- I was part of a team that put together a business plan to create a new product that was sent to top levels of Gannett management.
Number 10
Number 9
Inspiring trainer, professor
-- I love journalism and it has been a great career for me. This year I am providing free training to newspapers as a way to give back to an industry I love. (My training was featured in an article in the spring issue of APME News.)
-- For nine years, until the commute was too much, I taught the basic news writing class at GW. I loved helping young people discover and strengthen their writing muscles and steered a number of them into journalism. Journalism program director Al May said the students from my classes were the best prepared for the upper level writing classes because of my demanding course. Even so, I consistenly received the highest rating from students than any full or part time faculty member in the School of Media and Public Affairs. I look forward to using what I learned at GW to build a program in your community that welcomes in and trains young journalists.
Number 8
Continuous learner
You can't teach what you don't know, nor can you lead unless you understand the roles each member of your team plays. For that reason, constant learning is required in our industry. I love to learn and try new things. I truly believe the Eric Hoffer quote I often cite in training sessions:
"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists."
-- When we rolled out posting online to the newsroom, I was the first to learn so that I could design the way the rest of the staff would receive the training.
-- When I thought I could be more effective as a trainer if I knew better how to put together a curriculum and deliver training, I went back and got a Masters in Adult Education from GW. I graduated in 2002 with a 4.0 GPA.
-- In my time off now, I'm teaching myself flash from a textbook and learning all I can about the newest online tools. Here's some video of me enjoying myself at the APME Conference (it was mostly work, but some play too!)
Number 7
Award-winning reporter, editor
-- I was a reporter in Nashville and Washington for a decade, a hands-on editor for three, and an editor on assorted projects after that. While in Sports I won an APSE award for a story on coaches' salaries.
-- Just to make sure I still had it, I tried to write something for USAT every year. Here are my stories from 2005 and 2006:
Georgia on their behinds This was a story about the 2005 Bike Ride Across Georgia, an across-the-state ride in its 27th year that draws 1,500 riders. I participated and wrote about the riders and the ride.
House swap vacation In August 2006, my family of four switched houses and cars with another family of four from Northern Ireland we met through an Internet home-exchange site. Through diaries, we each recorded our impressions. (I won the daily staff award from best thing in the paper or website for the story.)
Number 6
Number 5
Respected by managers and peers
Ken Paulson, editor, USA TODAY 
kpaulson@USATODAY.com or 703-854-3400 (His assistant's name is Krena.)
I worked for Ken from April 2003 until Dec. 2007. In my last review, Ken said my strengths are:
Excellent writing and editing skills
Eagerness to take on new challenges
Ability to handle sensitive issues carefully and confidentially
A contageous enthusiasm
A deep understanding of newsroom operations and standards
Constructive and candid in her approach
A skillful and consciencous supervisor, determined to elevate the quality of work of those who report to her
Kar
en Magnuson, editor, vice president/News, Democrat & Chronicle, Rochester, N.Y. kmagnuso@democratandchronicle.com or 585-336-6330 (Her assistant is Janette.)
From 2005 until the convention in Oct. 2007, I worked very closely with Karen to put on the annual meeting of the Associated Press Managing Editors. We hosted two and a half days of events for 500 editors. I put together a book signing/wine tasting event and created the "tiny editors" marketing campaign that was written about in E&P. Karen can talk about my creativity, dedication and my work ethic.
Julia
Wallace, editor, Atlanta Journal and Constitution and AJC.com, jdwallace@ajc.com or 404-586-9650 I worked with and for Julia in the 1980's and early 1990's at USA TODAY. She can give you her impressions of my talents and skills and how I influenced the culture of USA TODAY.
Wanda Lloyd, editor, The Montgomery Advertiser, wlloyd@montgome.gannett.com or
334 261-1509 Wanda is an old friend and a veteran Gannett editor. She'll tell you whether I have what it takes to lead a newsroom.
Number 4
Innovative and creative
A trip around the Web reveals that small community newspapers , weeklies and even a group of volunteers have developed the skills needed to establish a web presence that is the hub of a community.
And a look at Flickr, Facebook and other social networking sites shows that uploading and sharing photos, videos, music and information has become easy enough for people of all ages to manage.
Skills training is required but that is no-longer prohibitive. Poynter has free online training and the Knight Foundation is directing much of its journalism education grant money into online resources for journalists. API and APME's NEWSTRAIN are other sources of inexpensive skills training.
I can train on the application of those skills. Here is the description of training I am delivering in June in Detroit to the staffs at both papers and other journalists in the region:
TELLING THE STORIES OF OUR COMMUNITIES
10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Detroit Newspapers Building, 615 W. Lafayette, Detroit, MI 482226
Adell Crowe, newsroom trainer and formerly an editor with USA Today, will conduct workshops on using new media to better connect with and tell multimedia stories about our communities.
10 a.m.: Journalistic storytelling in a multimedia world
How digital storytelling tools help us to engage readers in powerful new ways
Lunch: Working lunch with a writing exercise
1-3 p.m. The new community journalist
How social networking tools help us mine stories in local communities. Will combine traditional, local-local reporting with new techniques that surface hidden stories and turn readers into sources.
Great things are happening on the Web. A talented staff that understands the power of our multimedia tools can produce compelling journalism. I can develop the staff and deliver those results.
Number 3
Number 2
When the top editors of USA TODAY wanted to make strategic changes at the newspaper, they each turned to me and USAT University, my training program, to set expectations and train the skills needed to reach them:
-- When USA TODAY and USA TODAY.com merged I brought in experts to give the staff a high level of understanding of what was possible on line and where USA TODAY needed to be. I brought in leading Web thinkers such as Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine and Jay Rosen of PressThink and NYU. Dan Gilmore and Jan Schaffer of JLAB, the Institute for Interactive Journalism explained the role community journalists are playing in newspapers across the country. When the merger was complete and copy editors began posting content to the web, I set up a detailed, day-long session that outlined exactly what would be expected of all USAT journalists and the hands-on training that would be provided for each staff member. As part of those sessions, I gave an introduction encouraging the staff to take responsibility for learning new skills and preparing themselves for the exciting and endless changes the Web will bring. API collected it in a roundup. Here's the full post .
-- When former Editor Karen Jurgensen wanted to raise the sophistication of the writing in USA TODAY, she turned to me to create and lead three hours of "3G" (Third Generation) training for the staff. These sessions resulted in a wider understanding and use of context in our writing and greater experimentation in writing styles. "Through you and USATU, we moved the boat," Jurgensen wrote in my 2003 annual review.
-- When former Editor Dave Mazzarella determined that our grammar and punctuation usage was inconsistent, he had me develop and conduct four hours of grammar and punctuation training for every staff member. As part of the training I created names for common comma rules and taught how to apply the semicolon, colon and dash. Susan Miller, head of the News Copy Desk, told me that those sessions empowered copy editors to question not just usage, but content questions as well and elevated their standing in the news rooms.
