Experience

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  The Kansas City Star

  • United States
  • Newspaper Publishing
  • 400 - 500 Employee

  • Local government watchdog reporter

    • Feb 2023 - Present

  • Reporter on the investigations team

    • Jun 2015 - Mar 2023

    Among the stories I've written or taken a lead role in publishing since joining the investigations/depth reporting team: a series on how firefighters nationwide continue to make the same fatal mistakes again and again, articles calling federal regulators to account for failing to mandate safety technology that could prevent many fatal truck crashes, and an expose on a college professor who exploited foreign students by having them do menial tasks at his home. Stories on political corruption at Jackson County, Mo., have also been a mainstay.

  • Local government watchdog reporter

    • Aug 2011 - Jun 2015

    My assignment was to write enterprise stories with impact, focusing on local governments in the KC area on both sides of the state line. During this period I teamed with another reporter to write an investigative piece that won the Gerald Loeb Award for financial journalism. It was my second Loeb.

  • Metro columnist

    • Feb 1997 - Aug 2011

    For most of 14 years, I reported and wrote three metro columns a week on a wide variety of topics, earning multiple first-place awards from the Missouri and Kansas press associations for serious and humorous columns.

  • National agriculture writer

    • Nov 1992 - Feb 1997

    As ag writer I wrote a series about the then-nascent bio-tech industry within agriculture and covered the growth in factory farms

  • Business writer

    • Mar 1985 - Nov 1992

    Among the highlights during this period, I along with two other reporters published a seven-part series detailing the business and political influence of a secretive Kansas City mogul. The series, titled "Frank's Town," won the Gerald Loeb Award for financial journalism in 1991.

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  The New York Times

  • Freelance writer

    • Mar 2013 - Present

    My wife, Roxie Hammill, and I were regular contributors to the business section's personal tech pages for a couple of years. Particularly, the Gadgetwise feature and, before that, Toolkits.

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  Author

  • Co-author of Mike and Roxie's Vegetable Paradise, a how-to book on garden...

    • Nov 2009 - Present
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  Telegraph Herald

  • Reporter, Dubuque Telegraph Herald

    • Jun 1980 - Mar 1985

    Business and city government reportage.

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  The Daily Nonpareil, Council Bluffs, Iowa

  • Reporter

    • Jun 1978 - Jun 1980

    Variety of entry-level reporting assignments. Covered cops, then city hall. First job out of college.