2011 Hall of Fame

Congratulations to the members of the 2011 Hall of Fame:

Robert Crawford
Newsman and media relations executive

In the late ’50s, the best part of being editor-in-chief of The Arizona Wildcat was the office. It was in the southwest corner (that’s right, a corner office) of the Student Union’s second floor, with views of Old Main and the mall. Didn’t have any working quarters that could compare until I was with the Diamondbacks and my office overlooked the third-base line at Bank One Ballpark.

Other than that, the newspaper served as an excellent preview of the real world. We had deadlines to meet, union printers to deal with, reluctant sources to milk, and terrific colleagues to lean on.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, Room 115 in the Liberal Arts Building basement morphed into a newsroom, with a 4 p.m. deadline for reporters to submit copy and an 11 p.m. deadline for copy, headlines, art and page dummies to be dropped off at Tucson Printing on South Fourth Avenue. Those sessions inevitably ended at the Santa Rita Hotel coffee shop for some late-night socializing, sugar and caffeine.

Tuesdays and Thursdays were production days, with the editorial staff back at the print shop to oversee the building of the pages and lunch across the street at the L&L Drive-In, which sold excellent enchiladas and cold pitchers, not necessarily in that order.

The Wildcat of  that era was a student newspaper in every sense of the word. Each reporter and editor was also a student in the Journalism Department, with work on the Wildcat a required part of the curriculum.

When I think back on some of those people I was fortunate enough to work with — Bob Walker, Gordon Evans, Rosalie Robles Crowe, Pat Gordon, Liz Haas White, Joe Cole, Dave Kohl, Gayle Runke Siroky, Tom Dau, Edith Sayer Auslander, Jim Johnson — one thing becomes abundantly clear.

We learned a lot, we had fun, and for a bunch of kids “playing newspaper,” we were pretty darned good…

Robert L. Crawford has been fortunate to spend a professional career involved with two of his great loves: newspapers and baseball.

After graduating from the University of Arizona — where he was managing editor of the Arizona Wildcat as a junior and editor-in-chief as a senior — he spent several months with The Phoenix Gazette and six years with the Tucson Daily Citizen before returning to The Gazette in February of 1966 for an extended stay that lasted until December 1995, including stints as assistant sports editor, sports editor and assistant managing editor. Most of that time was spent in the sports department, where he won Arizona Press Club first-place honors for best sports story three times and for headline writing once.

After accepting an early-retirement opportunity, he stayed retired for almost a month before accepting an offer to become the first media relations manager for the newly-minted Arizona Diamondbacks, who had received a franchise from Major League Baseball the previous March and would not begin playing until 1998. For the next five years, he served as a liaison between the team and media during the formation of a minor-league system, the construction of Bank One Ballpark, the expansion draft and the team’s first three seasons in the National League.

Part of his duties included writing and overseeing the publishing of two books about those early years: “We’re in the Show” chronicles the story of the franchise, from when it was just Jerry Colangelo’s dream to Opening Day on March 31, 1998. “Diamond in the Desert” is a mostly-pictorial tour of Bank One Ballpark. Released as a boxed set in the late summer of 1998, the books are safely archived at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.

In retirement, Bob continues to work two days a week as an editor at The Arizona Republic and remains connected to his alma mater. He has served on the UA School of Journalism’s Alumni Advisory Board since 1996 and was on the board of directors of the Alumni Association’s Phoenix chapter from 2001-2007, serving as president in 2005-2006.

He has been happily married to Jo Anne since 1965, and cherishes the fact that their son, Bob, daughter, Shauna, and two granddaughters all live less than 15 minutes away.

Olaf Frandsen
Publisher and regional VP, Freedom Communications

Professional Experience

October 2002-Present, Regional Vice President/Freedom Communications Inc

Publisher, The Monitor

August 2009 – Present. Distinguished Lecturer/Adjunct Professor, University of Texas-Pan American, Edinburg, Texas. Part-time professor of Media Law & Ethics, and Writing for Mass Media.

May 1996-October 2002:  Regional Vice President/Freedom Communications Inc.

Publisher, Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, CA

Other assignments with Freedom Communications:

June 1993-May 1996, Publisher, Turlock (CA) Journal.

June 1986-June 1993, Editor, Odessa (TX) American

May 1985-June 1986, Political Editor, Orange County (CA) Register

May 1982-June 1986, News Editor, Managing Editor, Odessa American

Other professional experience:

March 1981-May 1982, Managing Editor, Williston (ND) Herald

Sept. 1979-March 1981, Editor, Sidney (Mont.) Herald

Jan. 1978-Sept. 1979, Managing Editor, Bisbee (AZ) Daily Review

Education

University of Phoenix 2001, MBA

University of Arizona, 1987, BA Journalism, minors in English and Sociology

Stanford University Graduate School of Business, 2001, Certification in Leading Organizational Change

Stanford University Graduate School of Business, 1999, Certification in Leadership for the High Potential Manager

Honors of Significance

2006, Publisher of the Year, Freedom Communications Inc.

2001, Business Person of the Year, Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce, Marysville, CA

1987 Pulitzer Prize in Spot News Photography (As Editor of The Odessa American)

1987, Media Person of the Year, Heritage Foundation of Odessa

Summary of Community Involvement

Strategic Planning Facilitator

Have led strategic planning seminars for community organizations for 10 years, including the community membership of the City of Hidalgo, Texas, which ultimately led to the winning of All America City designation.

Previous Community Organization participation:

Board of Directors, McAllen Chamber of Commerce

Board of Directors, Texas Daily Newspaper Association

Board of Directors, McAllen Medical Center

Board of Directors. United Way of South Texas

Board of Directors, Executive Committee, Finance Committee,  Fremont-Rideout Hospital Group, Yuba City, CA

President, Yuba-Sutter Economic Development Corporation, Yuba City, CA

Board of Directors, Valley Vision, Sacramento, CA

Board of Directors, Yuba-Sutter Chamber of Commerce, Yuba City, CA

Editorial Board, Comstock’s Business Magazine, Sacramento CA

President, Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Association

Paul Giblin
2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for local reporting

Paul Giblin, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, currently serves as a public affairs specialist for the Army in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is assigned to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and stationed at the Qalaa House compound, where he has served since November 2009.

Paul travels across Afghanistan to report on the U.S. and coalition forces’ reconstruction efforts in the war‐torn country. He has written about an undercover investigation into a multi‐million‐dollar fraud case, anti-corruption efforts, terrorist attacks on reconstruction projects, programs to teach job skills to under-educated Afghan workers, and an effort to erect solar-powered streetlights in the capitol city that has no electrical grid, among other topics.

Before joining the Army as a civilian employee, Paul worked for more than 24 years as a reporter, columnist, editor and bureau chief for newspapers and other news organizations in Arizona, Hawaii and New Mexico. He also was a regular contributor writing about Arizona topics for The New York Times from 2002 through 2009 and for The Dallas Morning News from 1993 through 2005.

Working with a small group of associates, Paul co‐founded the subscription‐based Arizona Guardian news service in January 2009. The Intranet news organization provides non‐partisan coverage of state government and politics, a sector that had been de‐emphasized by traditional news organizations during the current recession. The Guardian has received significant notice by journalism magazines and other publications as one of the pioneers of the emerging realm of “new media.” Paul relinquished day‐today involvement with the Guardian when went to Afghanistan.

He worked in various capacities with the East Valley Tribune in metro Phoenix from January 1995 through January 2009. Paul and fellow reporter (and Daily Wildcat alumnus) Ryan Gabrielson produced a five-day investigative series that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and the George Polk Award for justice reporting, among other national, regional and state awards. Paul and Ryan  spent six months examining Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s illegal immigration enforcement operations and their resulting assault on U.S. civil rights and their costs to county taxpayers. The FBI has since started its own investigation in the sheriff’s operations.

Paul served for years as the federal affairs reporter at the Tribune and covered the state’s 2008, 2006 and 2004 U.S. Senate and House races and immigration issues among other issue. Among other highlights, he exposed a police official’s illicit drug use, uncovered improper plans to build an NFL stadium in the flight path of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport threatening flight safety, elicited a written confession from a murder suspect, documented the lives of feral paint-sniffing children living under the U.S.-Mexico border and exposed racism at a public gym, among other topics.

Along with many talented journalists who comprised half the newsroom staff at the Tribune at the time, Paul was cast off in January 2009 during a massive lay-off that did absolutely nothing to improve the quality of the paper. To the Tribune’s credit, the paper sprang for a couple of bottles of champagne and invited him and others who were involved in the project back to the newsroom when the Pulitzers were announced four months after the paper gave them the heave-ho. Paul spilled champagne on the carpet and didn’t feel bad about leaving a stain.

Christopher Halligan
Technology entrepreneur

Sportswriting at the Wildcat was as much fun as a job can be.

Sit in the Arizona Stadium press box? Check. Talk to the players and coaches? Check. Hang out in the Hillenbrand sun while watching the softball team crush someone? Check. Cover your friends at intramural games on Bear Down Field? Check.

In the late 80’s, Reuters was the Internet. You could read about everything. The newsroom walls featured “autographed” wire photos of celebrities. There was a computer we could use (this was a big deal). And we were getting paid.

The best part? The people. Sheila McNulty, when not touching the third rail of Lute criticism, mostly left sports alone and had an engaging sense of humor. Tony Kuttner tolerated mountains of nonsense and had an excellent nickname. John Moredich was John Moredich (which is a good thing). Todd Pletcher made occasional appearances.

But there was more: Substantial dialogue about campus culture. Spirited debates about meaningful issues. Good writing everywhere you turned.

Why did I leave again?

Chris Halligan is an experienced, successful technology executive and entrepreneur.

Upon graduating from the University of Arizona in 1989, Chris joined the Dell Computer Corporation where he worked for 10 years, both in Austin, Texas, and Tokyo.  He was Dell’s Salesman of the Year in 1991 and then held several sales and marketing management positions, culminating in responsibility for over $2B per year in commercial revenues conducted over the Internet in 1999.

Following Dell, Chris ran North America for webMethods during a period highlighted by explosive revenue growth and the firm’s IPO — one of the most successful in software history.  He then became part owner of Mascot Books, a leader in self publishing for children’s authors, and co-founded Kieden, a software startup which was purchased by salesforce.com in 2006.

Most recently, Chris was Chief Executive Officer for PokerTek (nasdaq: ptek), a Matthews, N.C., based gaming company and the world leader in automated poker technology.  During his tenure, PokerTek grew from $4M to $13M in annual revenues in just two years.

Currently Chris is the CEO of a tech startup called OtherScreen, serves on the board of Mascot Books, and is a co-founder of Charlotte Regional Technology Executives.  He is married to Sarah and has three cool kids who attend Providence Day School in Charlotte. While at the Daily Wildcat in the late 1980s, Chris was a sportswriter.

Rod J. Howard
Partner, WilmerHale

Mr. Howard worked in a succession of positions at the Daily Wildcat between 1974 and 1977, starting as night copy reader and then later as copy editor, news editor, summer editor and one of the Wildcat’s first regular editorial page columnists.  After graduating from the University of Arizona in December 1977 with a B.A. in English literature, Mr. Howard attended the University of Chicago Law School, where was a member of the editorial board of the law review.  He also co-founded the modern resurrection of the law school’s then-dormant newspaper, The Phoenix, which still publishes.

After graduating from law school with honors in 1982, he worked as a law clerk to the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Judicial Circuit, and then spent a year as a visiting scholar at a leading post-graduate institute in Germany devoted to comparative and international private law.

Upon returning to the United States in 1984, Mr. Howard worked for 12 years in his hometown of New York City, first as a corporate takeover and securities law litigator with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a leading takeover defense firm, and then as a “corporate” lawyer with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, an old line Wall Street law firm, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions and regulatory reform in the energy and public utility industry.

In 1996 he moved to Silicon Valley, where he has advised companies, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and investment bankers globally on mergers and acquisitions, SEC compliance, corporate governance and related matters.

His clients are primarily in three sectors — technology (semiconductors, software, internet, new media, games), life sciences (biotech, medical devices and bio-pharmaceuticals), and financial services.  He is currently a partner in the Silicon Valley transactional group of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, LLP, a large international law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Boston, and he helped found the firm’s Silicon Valley office in Palo Alto in 2005.  Before that, he was a partner in the Silicon Valley offices of Weil Gotshal & Manges, a leading New York law firm, Brobeck Phleger & Harrison, a leading San Francisco-based law firm that dissolved in 2002, a victim of overexpansion during the internet bubble, and Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich, a pioneering law firm in the Silicon Valley venture capital and “start-up” practice.

Mr. Howard has extensive experience representing companies, investors and investment banks in mergers and acquisitions. He also provides strategic advice and counseling to senior managements and boards of public companies on matters ranging from transactions to corporate governance to SEC compliance. Before becoming a corporate lawyer, Mr. Howard was a securities and M&A litigator.  Mr. Howard has published numerous articles on M&A topics, is a frequent speaker on mergers and acquisitions.  Mr. Howard has been listed in various guides to leading lawyers, and has been selected as one of the Northern California’s “Super Lawyers” for four of the last five years.

Personally, Mr. Howard is the devoted father of two daughters, Alexandra, 13, and Christina, 10.  In his free time, he travels, skis, sails, writes, plays and composes for the piano.

Rod J. Howard – Self-Interview

Where did the interest in journalism come from? “Growing up I never expected to be a lawyer. I had journalism in my blood, and journalism was always my first passion.  I was editor of my high school paper, and pretty much learned how to write – grammar, style, spelling, the architecture of writing – from reading The New York Times every day.  My maternal grandfather was president of the printers union in New York at one time, and for many years my uncle was night city editor of the New York Daily News, then the largest circulation daily in the United States.  I spent “impeachment summer,” the summer of 1974, as a copy boy, running film to the newsroom from a darkened room where a photographer was taking grainy shots of Richard Nixon’s resignation speech on an old black-and-white television.  No digital technologies then – just paper, spikes, molten lead linotype machines, three-story-tall lead presses, and film pickups at train stations and airports.  It was more like the 19th century than the 21st century.” So with all that “ink in your blood,” why law school? “I went to law school not expecting to practice law, but thinking I would return to journalism, using what I learned in law school as a columnist.  My heroes were Russell Baker and James Reston of The New York Times, and my ambition was to be a columnist.  The early 1970s were a time of investigative reporting and activism, and I viewed journalism – and law – as agents of change.” “Business, finance and Wall Street weren’t my ambition, but they turned out to be far more interesting than I ever expected.  And for a business lawyer, I have had some unusual opportunities to participate in social change, particularly in working with technology companies.  Technology has had dramatic social and political impact.  With wireless communication, mass storage, fast computing, handheld devices and the internet, every citizen has more access to more information than at any time in history.  Repressive governments still try to erect barriers, but technology has been an incredible leveling and democratizing force.” “I think of my time in Germany in the mid-1980s,

before the Wall came down, when brave friends of mine risked imprisonment in East Germany to smuggle newspapers and news magazines in hollowed-out gas tanks and secret compartments in cars from the West to the East.  What a difference now.  It’s ironic, because if you think of novels from the first half of the 20th century — 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and the like — writers thought technology would be a tool of repression, not liberation.” Have journalism and The Daily Wildcat been useful to law school or lawyering? “The dedication to detail, the need to meet deadlines, the focus on facts, the attention to analysis, the importance of catching and holding readers’ interest, and the shape of a news report with its focus on key facts first — all of this pervades the work I have done as a lawyer.  The fact-finding of journalism and the fact-finding of the litigation side of the law (which I did for almost five years) have many similarities.  At the same time, I enjoy the role of an adviser and counselor.  As an adviser, I am less bound by historical facts and have more chance to create facts, future facts, by shaping what happens.  And that’s rewarding.” Anything else about The Daily Wildcat? “The camaraderie among the Daily Wildcat staff was incredible, and the work was rewarding.  I took another path, but I still think of journalism as having a noble and vital mission, and The Daily Wildcat approached journalism with seriousness and professionalism.” Anything else about the law? “Like journalism, a lot of variety and never a dull moment – it’s fast-paced and it’s possible to have an impact.  One thing I didn’t expect was that there would be as many changes as there have been.  But that’s a reflection of the “new normal” in business law.  Partners come and go, and seemingly strong and stable firms that have been around for 100 years, for generations, blow up.  Change is a constant.  What’s durable is what you carry with you, inside you – your skills, your knowledge and your relationships.  So maybe there’s another parallel to journalism.”

Mary Alice Kellogg
Journalist and author

In the 1970 Desert yearbook, I am pictured seated by a typewriter, identified as the Wildcat “Society Editor.” Fie on the snark who came up with that title, for there was no society page. My actual job was to write about everything, including campus protests, bad Student Union cuisine, breaking local news, student politics, interviews with visiting dignitaries … and to produce a slew of earnestly overwritten essays, in which I shockingly came out against the Vietnam War, the atomic bomb, and for equal jobs/pay for women.

The Wildcat was then the fifth largest daily in Arizona; working there cemented my resolve to become a general interest journalist. Thanks to superb Journalism Department newsmen/professors Phil Mangelsdorf, George Ridge and Don Carson, I learned to accurately and objectively report the hell out of any story, then write it without omitting the “five Ws/one H.” In a 40-year career writing and editing national magazines, this generalist has done everything from getting shot at during the siege of Wounded Knee; interviewing politicians, celebrities, criminals and Sami reindeer herders; leading Newsweek’s Patty Hearst kidnapping task force; reporting from a Wall Street riot; reviewing Wagner’s “Ring” one week, and Michelin-starred Paris restaurants the next. (I prefer Paris to getting fired upon.) And I have never, in four decades in any publication, misspelled someone’s name. I still live with the fear of an automatic “F” in class.

I’ve reported from 125 countries to date, carrying the Wildcat ethic to each one, whether it be as a freelance writer, breaking news correspondent, editor-in-chief, custom publishing consultant, or web editorial director. My belief in the power of the written word and the truth it can convey remains strong, whatever the medium.  The courage to follow my interests, write about them, to grow and get paid for it, was born at the University of Arizona. I am ever-grateful.

Mary Alice Kellogg is an award-winning writer, editor, media  consultant … and a proud Tucson native with continuing deep ties to her hometown. This is no small thing: being a daughter of the desert gave her a sense of possibility, opportunity, and the knowledge that – with spirit and skills – horizons can be expanded, explored and understood.

In recent years, she has been identified as a “travel writer,” which in some circles is a negative term. She rejects that view. Her experience has taught her that travel writing is essential reporting, indeed. She has endeavored to go beyond the “go here/stay there/eat that” cliché, knowing that travel embraces customs, business, psychology, social issues, trauma, behavior, diplomacy, open-mindedness, challenges to individual values and beliefs, personalities, the dinner table, spirit of place … in short, how we live life on an increasingly global scale. Now more than ever it is crucial to help others understand our changing world.

Stepping off her soapbox — at last! – she offers her journey below. And adds that the journey continues!

JOURNALISM POSITIONS

Newsweek: Correspondent in Chicago, San Francisco; Associate Editor in NY.

WCBS-TV, New York: On-air news Correspondent

Parade: Senior Editor

TV Guide, Glamour, Seventeen, Adweek, Delta Sky: Columnist

Editorial Board: Chicago Journalism Review

News Corporation: Special Projects Editor

Editorial Consultant: Pace Communications, Hearst Corporation, Age Wave Publications

Executive Editor: Delta Airlines’ Shuttle Sheet, Amex Horizons, Get Up and Go sid12533209

Contributing Editor: Bon Appetit, GQ, Delta Sky, EverettPotter.com, FarewellTravels.com

Web Editorial Director: Voyages North America/ supervised international writing and editing team (India, Argentina and U.S.).

Since 1980: Freelance writer, editor, media consultant. My writing has appeared in more than 200 national and international publications, including the New York Times, GQ, Chicago Journalism Review, Columbia Journalism Review, Conde Nast Traveler, Vogue, Bon Appetit, Ladies Home Journal 2533209and others. A complete list/CV can be found at www.maryalicekellogg.com.

BOOKS: Her first book, “Fast Track” (McGraw-Hill, 1978), was the first mass market book to examine the social and business effects of the Baby Boom generation. She is also the author of “Hard Choices, Easy Decisions” (Simon & Schuster), a nonfiction guide to quantifying decision-making.

ACADEMIA

Adjunct Professor of Journalism: New York University.

AWARDS: Lowell Thomas International Travel Journalism Award, Glamour Woman of Achievement, Westin Star Media.

EDUCATION: BA in Journalism, University of Arizona.

Recipient: 1970 Freeman Medal as outstanding UA graduate

President: Theta Sigma Phi, Wranglers, Chimes

Activities: Spurs, Associated Women Students Secretary, Mortar Board, University Hostesses inaugural class.

LANGUAGES: French and Spanish.

Morgan Loew
Investigative reporter, KPHO, Phoenix

Working at the Arizona Daily Wildcat during the early 1990’s gave me my first taste of “teamwork” in a newsroom. The musty darkroom in the basement of the Student Union witnessed panic, excitement, disappointment and extreme satisfaction – every afternoon! I will always remember that no matter what the problem was, and there were many, the photographers always had each other’s backs. If someone’s film didn’t develop properly, someone else was always there to say, “Don’t worry! I have a shot we can use.” It’s a quality I’ve tried to bring to each and every newsroom I’ve worked in since.

I’ll also always remember the first paycheck I received for working at the Wildcat. It was my first monetary reward for practicing journalism. Fifteen dollars per day never looked so good!

Morgan is an investigative reporter at KPHO-TV, the CBS affiliate in Phoenix. Since beginning his broadcast news career at KVOA-TV in Tucson, his reports have taken him from the school bus ride on the first day of kindergarten to the invasion of Iraq. Morgan’s undercover investigations have exposed human smuggling and sex trafficking in Mexico, vigilantes and white supremacists along the border, and crooked businesses in Phoenix. Over the years, Morgan’s work has been featured on CNN, NBC News, MSNBC and CBS News.

Morgan has won numerous journalism awards, including eight Rocky Mountain Emmy Awards, a regional Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting, and most recently he and his producer, Gilbert Zermeno, were named the best TV Journalists in Phoenix in the Phoenix New Times “Best of 2010” edition. The weekly tabloid cited the duo’s year-long investigation into Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, which chronicled accusations that the sheriff was using his office to target political opponents.

Morgan began his journalism career in the sixth grade, writing for his school paper. He worked for the Arizona Daily Wildcat as a photographer, is a graduate of the University of Arizona and Concord Law School, and is currently the vice president of the Arizona First Amendment Coalition.

Sheila McNulty
Energy reporter, Financial Times

My years at the Wildcat were filled with long days and longer nights trying to come up with scoops. In those days, one didn’t search for them around the internet but in the garbage from the president’s building; by following administrators around after hours, and chasing every lead that came into the basement newsroom.
I was unusual in those days – at that time a republican – and remember angering the staff because I endorsed the first President Bush. Now I am a full-fledged democrat, but I do
enjoy thinking about how riled up everyone on staff became over that one.
Another favorite time was when I wrote an editorial about the waste going into raising Lute Olson’s salary to ensure he didn’t leave, when so many other departments were so needy. That time the sports staff could have killed me. Even the local sports media picked that one up – racing in for interviews with me as the editor.
But journalists are taught to speak the truth (or what they believe to be the truth), so I raced ahead with my own agenda!
The newsroom sofa was a great place for naps. Louie’s Lower Level kept us fueled (the evidence was the constant stack of trays filled with empty dishes and dirty silverware all over the newsroom). And the staff parties kept everyone friendly.
Great memories. The most fun I have ever had working at a newspaper.

Work Experience

The Financial Times

Houston, Texas                                                                                                  2001-Present

US Energy Correspondent: Covered the collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen, its accounting firm, as well as the energy trading crisis that followed; BP’s fall from grace following its Texas City explosion; the dramatic rise and fall of oil prices; growing public disenchantment with fossil fuels; the boom in onshore US natural gas; the fallout from the Macondo accident; increasing concerns about the environmental impact of oil and natural gas production; and the political and cultural backdrop against which all this enfolded – Texas.

Singapore/Malaysia/Brunei                                                                                     1997-2001

Regional Correspondent: Covered the Asian economic crisis and political and cultural issues of these Southeast-Asian nations.

Dow Jones News Service

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia                                                                                          1996-1997

Bureau Chief: Led the bureau’s coverage of the Asian economic crisis, while managing the staff of four and editing their copy.

Harborside, New Jersey                                                                                                   1996

Desk Editor: Edited copy from around the world in the Dow Jones News Service headquarters.

The Associated Press

Bangkok, Thailand                                                                                                  1994-1995

Correspondent and Assistant News Editor: Covered Thailand and the surrounding countries of Cambodia, Laos and Burma while deciding news coverage and editing stories in this Southeast Asia control bureau.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia                                                                                         1992-1994

Correspondent: Covered the largest U.N. peacekeeping operation in history, the  Khmer Rouge guerrilla group’s refusal to cooperate with it, and the ensuing conflicts as Cambodia struggled to emerge from two decades of conflict.

Bangkok, Thailand                                                                                                           1992

Reporter: Covered the series of pro-democracy demonstrations that erupted into the worst political violence Thailand had seen since 1976. Soldiers opened fire on tens of thousands of students and middle-class workers in an attempt to end the rallies, killing dozens and wounding hundreds more.

Newark, New Jersey                                                                                               1990-1992

Reporter: Covered state, national and international stories for news, business and sports wires; edited state stories; and wrote and edited state broadcast report.

Free-Lance

East and Southeast Asia                                                                                         1989-1990

Reporter: Covered the aftermath of the June 4, 1989, massacre in Beijing and the resulting protests in Hong Kong; Cambodia’s struggle for peace; and the plight of  Indochinese refugees in Thai camps as they prepared to resettle in the United States.

Arizona Daily Wildcat

Tucson, Arizona                                                                                                      1988-1989

Editor-in-Chief: Managed daily the news, sports, entertainment, layout, copy, photo   and editing staffs for this 22,000 circulation, independently-run college newspaper.

During the previous three years, I served as city editor and reporter for the paper, the sixth largest daily in Arizona.

Jay Parker
International security and foreign policy expert

Jay M. Parker is Professor of International Security at the College of International Security Affairs of National Defense University in Washington, DC.  A graduate of the University of Arizona (where he was editor in chief of the Daily Wildcat), he earned master’s degrees from Arizona State University, University of Southern California, and the Naval War College, and a PhD in political science from Columbia University.  His teaching and research areas include international relations, strategy, American foreign policy, mass media and politics, and politics and film.  Jay is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the board of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC).

Jay served as an officer in the United States Army for 26 years, serving in a variety of infantry and special operations command and staff positions in the US and Europe.  For more than a decade, he was Director of International Relations and Security Studies and Professor of Public and International Affairs in the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy.  He served as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University (teaching limited war and low intensity conflict), and currently serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at George Washington University (teaching politics and film).

Jay retired from active duty in 2005 in the rank of Colonel, and then served as executive vice president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, and as Advisor and Center Liaison to the Iraq Study Group (the Baker-Hamilton Commission) .  He is a US-Japan Leader Fellow, a Truman National Security Project Fellow, a former Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s Center of International Studies, a former member of advisory committees for the Museum of Television and Radio, and former chair of the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISA).  Jay was a member of the defense policy team and the veterans advisory group for the Obama presidential campaign.  His civilian professional experience includes service as an aide to the late Rep. Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.), political media consultant, and journalist.

Todd Pletcher
Thoroughbred racehorse trainer

Todd Pletcher is a leading American thoroughbred horse trainer. He has won four consecutive Eclipse Awards as outstanding Trainer of the Year, while topping the leader board in purse earnings in 2004, 2005, and 2006. His horse Super Saver won the 2010 Kentucky Derby, the first of his 24 horses entered in his career to win the Run for the Roses. He also won the 2007 Belmont Stakes with filly Rags to Riches. A 1989 graduate of the UA’s race track industry program, Todd tried his hand in journalism as a sportswriter for the Daily Wildcat while a student.

Terry Valeski
Global telecom executive

Lots of memorable moments.  When I took over a business manager for the Wildcat, we took it to becoming a “daily” for the first time- crazy.  I hired a bunch of my fraternity brothers (Sigma Chi) to sell space and some of them paid their way through the UofA with that.  Pat Alexander was publications director then working for Bumps Tribolet.  Her husband, Dick, was the entertainment editor for the Star.  So, as teens at the UofA, my wife and I got to meet and have dinner with all  the movie stars in town to make films- including Paul Newman when they made “Hombre”.

Terrence Valeski is Executive Chairman of the Board of Advent portfolio company, Aircom International. He was also on the board of Advent portfolio company MACH, a leading global provider of inter-operator billing services, and advises Advent on telecommunications sector investments. Terry is an Operating Partner for Advent International Private Equity.

He is currently Vice Chairman of T-Mobile in the Czech Republic and a Board Director of Ceske Radiokommunicaze, the Czech broadcast transmission business. Terry is an advisor to Ernst and Young M&A Group, London.

He has served on the Board of Intellisync (NASDAQ) and Sonim Technologies. Over the course of his operating career Terrence has launched and operated five different wireless operations in as many countries. Companies he has worked for include Eurotel Praha (as CEO); BT Wireless; Blu (BT Joint Venture Italy); Telfort (BT Joint Venture Holland); British Telecom; Pacific Bell Mobile Services (US); Atari Corporation-US (Consultant); Mattel Inc.; IN TV Corporation (US) and Teledyne Waterpik (US).  He began his career at J. Walter Thompson advertising as a senior VP.

Terry has remained active with his alma mater  as a member of the National Board of Advisors to the Dean of The Eller College, an Executive in Residence for Eller, a member of the Sigma Chi Alumni Association Executive Board, member of Sigma Chi Hall of Honor, and  Arizona Wildcat Hall of Honor.

Margo Warren
Health communications professional

My memories of the Wildcat are a mix of hilarity combined with hard work and punctuated by some pretty great accomplishments. Cynthia Lancaster and I revealed mismanagement at a student-run bar called Merlin’s and won first place in the state for investigative journalism. For this story I had my very own “Deep Throat” who would meet me in secret and hand over bags full of revealing documents. I remember going out on assignments with a cute photographer named Darr Beiser, whom I later snagged as my husband.  He was fascinated by my ability to use a typewriter without ever breaking one of my long fingernails. He would sit and stare in awe.  I remember being surrounded by brilliant funny people:  Merl  Reagle changing all our of bylines into anagrams for the April Fool’s edition;  Salley Rayl landing an interview with  Paul McCartney that led to her job at Rolling Stone;  Arlene Scadron, eight  months pregnant, doing intensive investigative writing on the resignation of a department head at the College of Medicine;  Mark Ochs writing headlines like “Rock Hounds Roll into Town” for the annual Gem and Mineral Show, and Fitz, being Fitz, having a toga wedding.

I remember drinking endless enormous cups of black coffee; and endless pitchers of beer when we celebrated the close of the week starting at noon on Friday at Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow or Gentle Ben’s and ending sometime on Saturday. In my feature writing days, I worked on a story about a taxidermist where I described  drawers full of eyeballs and whiskers and ended the story with the groaner that my brother-in-law the accountant has never forgotten: “ The only things you have to do in life are die and pay the taxidermist.”  After failing to be rushed myself, I got my revenge when I reported on the scandalous decision of a sorority that pledged one identical twin and rejected the other.

My writing abilities were honed over in the J department, where I learned unforgettable lessons: “’Over’ is what clouds do” and the answer to the question about how long a story should be:  “How long is a piece of string? As long as it needs to be.”  I learned to copyedit like a champ from Charlie Burkhart.  We competed, he with his pipe ashes, and I with my sunflower seed husks to create the biggest mess.

When I graduated in 1976 I couldn’t find a job in journalism thanks to Woodward and Bernstein who had  made journalism the most popular and glamorous career in the universe. So I ended up going to the dark side, public relations, considered  at that time the work of Satan by journalistic purists —Don Carson, I mean you.  But it was George Ridge, on the steps of the journalism building who, at the end of my senior year said: “Margo, got a job yet?” and when I said no, handed me the announcement about the community relations job at City Hall. I never looked back. Who’s laughing now, print journalists?

I have spent the last 23 years of my career in public affairs at the National Institutes of Health, a place crawling with M.D., and  Ph.D’s, ( Some of them  have both; I call these the overeducated.)  Armed only with my BA from UA, and thanks to the Wildcat and the J department, I can go mano a mano against these Ph.D’s from MIT when it comes to writing.  Much of their work would be circled with big red automatic E’s.

I cherish my memories of the days at the Wildcat. I made friendships that I hold to this day, and built my career on the real-life experience and knowledge I gained there.  And, oh yeah, Darr and I finally remembered to have children, and Peter, 17 and Franky, 15 have the Wildcat to thank too.

Margo Warren is the Branch Chief of the Health Education and Public Liaison Section in the Office of Communications and Public Liaison at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health.  As the project officer for a major communications contract with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, she oversees the national public education campaign Know Stroke, Know the Signs, Act in Time. The campaign has received several prestigious awards, including the Gold World Medal from the New York Festival Film and Video Awards, and the Golden Eagle Award from CINE for a film on stroke; and awards for the Know Stroke materials from the National Association of Government Communicators and the NIH Plain Language Committee. She has played an active role in stroke education for the past 15 years, from the press conference announcing the institute’s groundbreaking study on the first treatment for acute stroke to the planning and execution of two national symposia for health care professionals on how to deliver acute stroke treatment.

In addition, Margo coordinates the institute’s press activities for a broad range of neurological diseases, working closely with the media to garner coverage for scientific findings.  She does extensive technical editing and writing, and advises scientific staff on how best to communicate with the media and public.  She also manages special events for the institute.

Margo has worked at the National Institutes of Health for 22 years, and previously served as communications director for The National Water Alliance, a Congressional coalition headed by former Arizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini and  as assistant director of community relations for the City of Tucson, and the Tucson Film Commission.

She graduated with honors with a double major in Journalism and Latin from the UA, where she was an award-winning investigative reporter and feature editor of The Arizona Daily Wildcat; and a member of Mortar Board.  She is married to USA Today photographer Darr Beiser, also a Daily Wildcat alum.

Merrill Windsor (deceased)
Magazine editor

Merrill Windsor, a 1949 graduate of the UA where he served on both the Wildcat and with the Associated Students, began his journalism career with the Arizona Republic and then a brief stint in public relations. But his mark was left as an editor with two of the most iconic western magazines, Sunset and Arizona Highways.

Merrill joined Sunset in 1956 and served as managing editor from 1968-1971. He then joined National Geographic as an editor of special publications. He reportedly edited more than 20 books while there and wrote four himself, including “America’s Sunset Coast” and “Baby Farm Animals.”

Merrill was appointed editor of Arizona Highways in 1985, a post he held until retiring in 1990. He died later that year at the age of 66.

His son Michael notes: “He strongly believed his experiences as student body president and on the student paper prepared him well for his professional life.”