Experience

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  FEMA

  • United States
  • Government Administration
  • 700 & Above Employee

  • External Affairs Reservist as Research & Writing Specialist

    • 2005 - Present

    Intermittent work on as needed basis.

  • Research & Writing Specialist

    • 2006 - 2016

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  Los Angeles Times

  • California

  • Investigative Reporter, LA County Government Bureau Chief, Asst. City Editor, Environmental Reporter

    • 1974 - 2004
    • California

    Investigated political campaign giving in Orange County, discovering that a prominent physician was using employees and facilities of proprietary hospitals he controlled to create political campaign materials that he valued at millions of dollars. Costs were included in hospital overhead charges for Medicare and Medi-Cal. Federal investigation ensued and the physician and several accomplices were convicted and imprisoned.Supervised three-person bureau covering Los Angeles County government.Wrote 30,000+ word series on impact of creation of California Coastal Commission. Series was reprinted and requests were received for some years thereafter.Using data made available by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, created daily "smog charts" that recorded hourly levels of three major air pollutants at each of the venues of the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. Subsequently, similar "smog charts" covering several Los Angeles areas became part of the LA Times daily weather page. Supervision of design and production of the weather page was added to my duties.Became Technical Resources Coordinator for the newsroom, with the mission of introducing personal computing to the staff. This was in cooperation with the Editorial computer department which was in charge of the proprietary computerized writing, editing and typesetting system.In 1989 I became Director of Computer Analysis at the LA Times. Along with a professional computer programming assistant, I provided computer analysis of a wide range of databases ranging from census data, to court records, and police data. The latter project involved creating our own database of homicides covering a five-year period and analyzing with statistical tools to determine actual solve rates, as opposed to the solve rates reported to the FBI. The project was a runner-up for a Pulitzer. I and the reporters involved won an award from Sigma Delta Chi, the professional journalism society.Retired in 2004.

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  Rocky Mountain News

  • Greater Denver Area

  • Investigative Reporter

    • 1970 - 1974
    • Greater Denver Area

    Researched and wrote multi-part series critically examining the City of Denver's bid to host the 1976 Winter Olympics. Explained why Denver could not deliver on its promises to the International Olympic Committee (which, under Avery Brundage, had set impossible requirements such as all venues within 45 minutes of a single Olympic Village.) Denver revised its plan, and Brundage approved, to have three widely separated venues for nordic skiing, alpine skiing and ice arena events, with separate villages for athletes. But Denver's promise not to spend public funds for the games was increasingly doubted and the voters approved an initiative law forbidding such spending. At that point the City of Denver notified the IOC that it could not host the games. The IOC then accepted the offer of Innsbruck, Austria to host the 1976 games, using the same facilities they had used for the 1968 games.Another long-term investigation uncovered a scheme among a New Orleans mafia figure, a Denver Small Business Administration official, and others to defraud small-town banks and the SBA with loans backed by fraudulent land development stocks. The FBI launched an investigation upon publication of the multi-part series and the principal figures were convicted of federal crimes and imprisoned.I received a handsome walnut plaque, a certificate of public appreciation, from U.S. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, shortly before he stepped down from the Nixon Administration.

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  The Denver Post

  • Denver, CO

  • Journalist

    • 1967 - 1969
    • Denver, CO

    Created "Human Affairs" beat, focusing on race relations and civil unrest, with special emphasis on local chapter of Black Panthers and Colorado birth of the Brown Berets.Using earlier knowledge gained working underground as a "mucker" (laborer) in the Climax Molybdenum Mine in Colorado, I proposed doing a feature on the construction of the Eisenhower Tunnel that carries I-70 under the Continental Divide. I accompanied miners as they drilled, dynamited and mucked out the 40-foot tall tunnel. I also spent time with the engineers, surveyors and other professionals who designed and supervised the project. The mine shift boss I worked with and featured was later crushed to death in an accident during the construction. My stories were published as a stand-alone 10-page tabloid insert in the daily edition of The Denver Post.

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  Rocky Mountain News

  • Denver, CO

  • Journalist

    • 1964 - 1967
    • Denver, CO

    After gaining experience as the only reporter on the staff of three different Denver area weekly newspapers, while at the same time attending the University of Denver, I landed a job at the Rocky Mountain News on the "night cops" beat, which worked well with my morning class schedule. I advanced to "night rewrite" in the city room and then became the paper's City Hall reporter. That was where I wrote my first investigative article, alleging favoritism in awarding liquor licenses. The official involved lost his job. My next assignment was at the paper's State Capitol reporter. Less than a year later, The Denver Post hired me away from the "Rocky".