Administration
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EDITORIAL
Exceptional Editorial Quality: Our award-winning reporting staff has its ear to the ground, consistently breaking major
stories, spotting emerging trends, and providing analysis of local business developments not found in any other
publications.
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Michael Lyster is editor of the Business Journal. He directs
the paper's coverage and layout and oversees a team of award-winning reporters. His goal is to detail Orange County's
growth as a design center for technology, fashion and other areas, and how these changes are impacting real estate,
professional services and other core segments of the local economy. The county's shifting demographics and emerging
Hispanic majority also are a focus. Lyster has been the Business Journal's editor since 2000. Before that, he served
as a technology editor for Investor's Business Daily, a national business publication based in Los Angeles.
In the 1990s, Lyster covered technology, global trade and other issues for the Orange County Business Journal.
He is a native of Orange County and a graduate of California State University, Fullerton with a degree in journalism
and a minor in political science.
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Rick Reiff
has been executive editor of the Orange County Business Journal since 2000 and writes the paper's popular OC Insider
column. Prior, he was the paper's editor starting in 1990. He is the host and producer of the weekly program,
"Inside OC," on public TV station KOCE. He is also a media professor at Chapman University, a public speaker and a
communications consultant. He previously was a staff writer for Forbes magazine. Reiff was the lead reporter on a team
at the Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal that won a 1987 Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Goodyear-James Goldsmith
takeover battle. He also was managing editor of Business First in Columbus, Ohio, and editor of the Westchester (N.Y.)
Business Journal. He won a 2001 Golden Mike award for Best Television Commentary in Southern California.
Reiff is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Besides writing the column, Reiff's executive
editor duties include working on the Comment page, advising on news coverage and representing the paper at speaking engagements.
E-mail:
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Alisha Gomez joined the Business Journal as associate editor
in 2004. She plays a key role in the production of the paper each week, including handling weekly features,
proofreading stories and working on layout. She also plays a leading role on the Business Journal's Web site. Prior
to joining the paper, Gomez was assistant editor for Limousine and Chauffeured Transportation, a publication of Bobit
Business Media. She interned at Orange Coast magazine and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Gomez
was managing editor at the Daily 49er, the campus paper for California State University, Long Beach, where she
graduated in 2003 with a degree in journalism.
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Julie Leupold is managing editor of the Business Journal. Along with co-managing editor Alisha Gomez, she plans, designs and executes special reports and edits the rest of the paper. With a diverse background in both print and online media, Leupold's goal is to keep the Business Journal caught up the journalistic Joneses.
Most recently, Leupold was the managing editor of the California Real Estate Journal, which took a dozen national and local awards in her tenure including her own nods for best young journalist and best commercial real estate report from the National Association of Real Estate Editors and editorial excellence and best feature report from the American Society of Business Publication Editors. She received her undergraduate degree from Pepperdine University and her master's in magazine journalism from New York University.
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Dan Beighley joined the Business Journal in the spring of 2007. He covers finance, aerospace and manufacturing. Previously he worked for Crittenden Research in Mission Viejo where he covered the hotel and restaurant industries. Prior to that he was a staff writer and analyst for Los Angeles-based TradingMarkets Financial Group where he covered hedge fund strategies for the company's website. He was also a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times Community Network where he covered local beats.
Dan is from Chicago where his introduction into finance came while working as a clerk on the floor of The Chicago Board of Trade. He also has a Series 7 stockbroker's license. He is a lover of travel and music, enjoys golf and all things in the ocean.
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Jennifer Bellantonio is the marketing, media and advertising
reporter and also covers the county's surfwear and other apparel makers. Bellantonio came to the Business Journal in
2000 after two years as associate editor at Outdoor Retailer magazine, a Laguna Beach-based trade publication for
manufacturers and retailers in the outdoor industry. Prior to her stint at Outdoor Retailer, Bellantonio honed her
journalism skills as a city beat reporter for the Orange County Register's community newspaper, Saddleback Valley News.
She also has contributed to various magazines and Web sites, including Orange County Home, Discover Orange County and
myOC.com. Originally from New York, Bellantonio has lived in Orange County for 21 years. She received a degree in print
journalism from Pennsylvania State University. E-mail:
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Sherri Cruz, rejoined the paper in 2003 after three years as a
technology reporter for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Cruz, whose first Business Journal stint was from 1999 to 2000,
write stories about malls and retailers, manufacturing and workplace issues, including company cultures and the labor
market. She also covers economic and demographic and economic trends. Cruz's journalism career is varied. She's covered
everything from arts and entertainment in Las Vegas to the dot-com bust. She also was a programmer specializing in
common business oriented language, or COBOL, as well as a concert promoter and a ballroom dance instructor. At the Star
Tribune, Minnesota's largest daily paper, Cruz wrote a weekly technology column called Minnebytes and covered companies
including ADC Telecommunications Inc., Lawson Software Inc. and Imation Corp. Cruz said she wanted to come back to OC
for a number of reasons including the sun, surf, faster pace, Southern California culture and because the Business Journal
is a fun place to work. In her spare time, Cruz writes poetry, fiction and children's stories and is learning to play
the piano and drums. She's also part of a group of skateboarding moms.
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Jessica C. Lee is the small business, economic development, professions and education reporter. Prior to joining the Business Journal in 2006, Lee was an associate editor at Irvine-based WallSt.net, a web site offering executive interviews and news for investors. There, she hosted Eye on Asia, a weekly podcast that covered the latest headlines and trends in Asia.
Since graduating from the University of California, Irvine in 2006 with a degree in literary journalism, Lee's work has been published in the Los Angeles Times, the Irvine World News and Thirteen Minutes Magazine, a publication geared toward Asian-Americans. Lee is a member of the Asian American Journalists Association. She enjoys spending time with family, cooking, spoiling her beloved Yorkshire terrier Muki and reading creative non-fiction. E-mail:
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Mark Mueller covers commercial and residential real estate for
the Orange County Business Journal. His beat also includes title insurers and mortgage lenders, as well as government
stories that relate to real estate. Mueller joined the Journal in December 2005. Before that, he covered retail, office,
industrial and condominium development for San Juan Capistrano-based publisher Crittenden Research. Prior to Crittenden,
Mueller worked in Washington, D.C. For nearly seven years, he did in-depth coverage of a wide variety of industries.
At Argus Media Ltd., he covered the transportation and energy markets for the publisher's weekly and daily publications.
At Phillips Business Information, Mueller reported on the Internet, banking and telecommunications for the company's
print and online publications. Mueller honed his financial reporting skills during a three-year stint at the Washington
bureau of Dow Jones, where he reported on initial public offerings during the glory years of the dot-com era. A native
of Columbia, Md., Mueller is a graduate of basketball powerhouse Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. He has degrees
in both Business Management and English. He enjoys playing soccer and golf.
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Vita Reed,
a graduate of the University of Southern California, covers healthcare, including health insurance, hospitals, medical
devices and drug companies and occasionally covers sports business for the Orange County Business Journal. Reed started
with the Business Journal in 2000, after more than four years with the Las Vegas Business Press. Her experience also
includes reporting jobs with the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel and the Charlotte Observer. Reed, a native of San Diego,
has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Southern California, has won three journalism awards from
the Nevada Press Association and is an active member of the San Diego graduate chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.
Reed is somewhat of a pop culture connoisseur, and likes to listen to and collect jazz recordings, particularly from
the 1950s cool, West Coast, hard bop and Third Stream genres. E-mail:
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Sarah Tolkoff, a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, covers Technology and International Trade for the Business Journal.
Before that, Sarah interned at Bloomberg News in Chicago, where she filed wire stories from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. She got familiar with the agricultural heritage of the Midwest, writing about the futures and options markets for corn, soy beans, cotton, wheat, frozen orange juice and even pork bellies.
Toward the end of her time at Bloomberg, she covered the metals markets in New York and London, writing about copper, gold and aluminum. She got to use her Spanish skills reporting on union strikes at the copper mines in Chile. At the Medill News Service, a student-run wire at Northwestern, Sarah did stories on Chicago's food industry, including the city's contentious ban on foie gras. She also covered the city's historic candy makers William Wrigley Jr. Co. and Tootsie Roll Industries.
While at Medill, Tolkoff was associate editor at Hyperlink, a student-launched trade magazine that was part of Medill's Magazine Publishing Project.
A self-proclaimed Valley Girl from West Hills, Sarah moved to OC to attend the University of California, Irvine, for her undergraduate degree in International Studies. Tolkoff has written for Moment magazine in Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles Times Orange County edition, L.A. Family and Coast magazines.
Tolkoff is fluent in Spanish and an avid traveler, having visited Mauritius, Israel, Fiji and Chile. She hiked the volcanoes and Mayan ruins of Guatemala this summer.
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CONTRIBUTORS
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Fifi Chao is a chef, lecturer, author, educator, radio
personality and publisher of Chao's Dinesty, a private subscription restaurant, wine and travel newsletter. She has
been reviewing local restaurants for the Business Journal since 1990. E-mail:
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