Who We Are at TownNews
 Deb Anderson Accounting Assistant Deb recently joined Town News as a temp and has had 10 years accounting experience. She likes to walk, read, scrapbook, play games and spend time with her family: husband Nolan, son Riley, one siamese cat "Taloos" a new guinea pig "Alf" and two Betta fish "Pip and Pop". |
 Matt Bishop Online Support Specialist Matt is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa. There he studied Communications, specializing in the field of electronic media. He joined the support team at TownNews in 2005. |
 Lonnie Blansett Programmer Hello! Among Lonnie's duties are custom programming for customers, maintaining/upgrading the classifieds system and working on the "News Engine." He enjoys programming, science-fiction and studying Japanese. |
 Greg Booras Vice President Sales Greg Booras brings over twenty years of newspaper and internet background to TownNews. As I.T. Director for the Moline Dispatch Publishing Company, Greg created a highly successful I.T. team and acted as a consultant for the Small Newspaper Group. In 1994 he developed and launched Quad-Cities Online, a highly successful internet service, and he created one of the areas first high speed wireless services for a five-city area. Greg also owned several profitable businesses including a computer store which he owned and operated for thirteen years. In his spare time he loves to travel with his wife, Lynn, and currently resides in Florida |
 Ben Carter Programmer Ben joined the programming staff in June 2005. Ben currently maintains Autosys, Photos Gallery and Poll. If not at work you are likely to find Ben eating Hot Wings playing Texas Hold Em at Buffalo Wild Wings or perhaps driving his super fast amazing ride. |
 Tomasz Ciesielczyk Web Designer Tomasz is a graduate of Bryant & Stratton with a degree in Internet Administration. Tomasz joined PowerAdz (later PowerOne Media) in 1999 as an intern. In 2000 he has been offered full time position as a web designer. His experience includes more than 8 years of web design and graphics. He lives in Cohoes, where he enjoys listening to trance and New Age music, watching sports, especially soccer and hockey. His favorite teams are Liverpool FC and New Jersey Devils. |
 Theresa Cufari Project Manager Theresa is a graduate of Nazareth College where she recieved a bachelors in Business Administration and Computer Information Systems and currently working towards an MBA at SUNY Albany. Prior to working with TownNews, Theresa was an Implementation Specialist for PowerOne Media and an IS Manager for an International Call Center. She lives in Albany, NY with her two dogs Calcio and Vito and her cat, Princess "C." |
 Andrea Danehower Regional Manager Andrea Danehower brings over 18 years media sales experience to Townnews, most recently serving as the ad director and the new media manager of a daily newspaper. Prior to newspapers, she was involved in the sales of graphic arts/ printing equipment and supplies. When not traveling, Andrea enjoys swimming, boating, and wine tasting with her husband Cole who is a wine and food writer. |
 Christy Davenport Internet Sales Consultant Christy lives in Bend, Oregon and joined the Townnews staff in December of 2001. She is a trainer for Townnews traveling all over the country to train newspaper staffs on the in's and out's of the Internet, and primarily how to sell Internet advertising into their online newspapers. Christy became a member of Townnews after previously working for our parent company, Lee Enterprises Inc in their Online Division and training all of their inner-company newspapers about the Internet. She has a background in business and is a former business owner. She has also written for several Oregon newspapers and was a photojournalist with her own column for many years. Christy received her bachelors degree from Southern Oregon University with a major in Business as well as a double minor in political science and communications. Christy is also a published author of short stories and is currently writing a novel (which like most great writers is currently sitting in a drawer unfinished). She lives in Oregon with her husband and enjoys the active lifestyle there of snowboarding, golfing, and hiking with their two beagles. |
 John DeBerry Programmer John joined TownNews.com as a programmer in March 2001. His current projects include AdSys, internal programming projects, and making sure that any chocolate brought into the office is immediately consumed. (But not dark chocolate: that's too bitter!) His interests are reading, music, movies, and music. He is also aware that he listed music twice. |
 Chris Dorr Programmer Chris has worked for TownNews over 6 years years. He started out as a web site scripter, parsed classifieds, managed the technical staff and now is the product deployment manager. In the fall of 2003, Chris resigned his technical manager position so that he could pursue his bachelors degree full time. |
 Chris Edmonds Programmer Chris Edmonds came to TownNews.com in October of 2005 after working as the webmaster for The Southern Illinoisan newspaper in Carbondale, IL for 4 1/2 years. He started at TownNews as a programmer and then switched to the design department in February of 2006. Chris graduated from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 2000 with a degree in Information Systems Technologies. He lives with his dog and cat. |
 Kim Evans Internet Sales Consultant Kim has been with TownNews.com since July of 2001. She brings along 14 years of newspaper experience, 9 years in circulation, 2 years in classified advertising, and 3 years of new media sales. Kim currently resides in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is married and has 2 boys, Tom Jr. and Michael, both in high school. Both she and her husband are originally from Ohio. In her free time she enjoys spending time with her family and 2 dogs. She also enjoys entertaining friends, cooking, fishing and following her favorite Ohio football and baseball teams as well as the Indianapolis Colts. |
 Sarah Falkowski Website Designer Sarah is a graduate of Marycrest International University where she received a bachelors in Computer Graphics. She began working for Lee Enterprises in 1999 as a member of the Internet Product Center Team. In March of 2000 she became a web designer for TownNews. She lives in the Milwaukee area with her husband Patrick. |
 Sean Finch Internet Sales Consultant Sean Finch brings years of successful experience to TownNews.com. Sean had won numerous sales awards from the print and electronic mediums. He now works in the Midwest and Northeast in developing and implementing sales strategies for TownNews.com's affiliate newspapers. Sean resides in Davenport, Iowa with his wife Angela and son Owen. |
 Michelle Fuger Special Projects Team Leader Michelle started working for TownNews in April, 2001 and became Customer Support Team Leader in 2002. Michelle and her family originally moved to Iowa from North Carolina in 1993 after her husband decided to leave the United States Marine Corps. Michelle's family includes her husband John, her daughter Amelia (age 15) and her son Johnny (age 6), plus their 2 dogs (Brittany and Sage) and cat (Smokey). Michelle enjoys reading murder mysteries, spending time with her family and relaxing during her time away from the office. |
 Penny Goebel Internet Sales Consultant Penny Goebel brings over 10 years of combined newspaper and online sales experience to TownNews. She has sold newspaper advertising for a group of three daily newspapers and three shoppers and was a general manager of a small weekly newspaper in southeast Iowa. She then worked as an online sales consultant for the largest daily newspaper in Iowa, The Des Moines Register. For 4 1/2 years she worked for the Iowa Newspaper Association as their Online Services Director. She sold websites to Iowa publishers and gave seminars on how to sell online advertising to their members. While she was there she also worked with several statewide, regional and national advertisers and agencies to sell newspaper ROP advertising, classifieds and online advertising into the members network. She currently lives in Iowa and enjoys spending time with her family and friends. |
 Carol Hartvigsen Accounting Carol comes to us from Lee Corp office where she worked in Central Processing for 2 1/2 years. She received her accounting degree from Scott Community College. Carol has over 15 years of accounting experience. With her husband they had their own Heating and Air conditioning business for 10 years before coming to Lee Corp. She enjoys golf, bowling and spending time with her children and grand kids. Her family consisted of her husband Dick two children Teresa and Todd,3 step daughters Kristy, Kathy and Julie. And most important are the 11 grand kids Chesney, Ryan, Nick, Hank, Jake, Emme, Madison, Ava, Maya, Grace and Hailey. |
 Darcy Heist Controller Achieving an accounting/finance degree from Western Illinois University, Darcy brings over 16 years of accounting experience to TownNews. She enjoys boating, volleyball and soccer. She enjoys spending time with her family, consisting of husband, Jeff; daughters, Emily, Lauren and Leslie; and, son, Alec. |
 Justin Hendershot The Job Network Sales Specialist Justin got his start at TownNews as Administrative Assistant in December 2003. Showing ambition early in his career, he was promoted to Sales Administrative Assistant in February 2005. Both positions have prepared Justin well for his current role as Job Network Sales Specialist. Justin is responsible for promoting the Job Network, an employment vertical centered on job matching. Outside of work, Justin enjoys spending time with his fiancee (and co-worker) Kelly, working on a new house, biking, and watching DVDs. |
 Jeremy Higgins Online Support Specialist Jeremy joined TownNews.com in October of 2000 as a Web Developer (yeah... we don't know what that title means either.) In April of 2001, Jeremy was promoted to Systems Administrator, and charged with protecting and defending the servers associated with AnyTimeNews. Following his time as a Systems Admin were a few months of school interspersed by a few months of working as Customer Support here at TownNews. Now Jeremy is back full time working to help our customers to the best of his ability. |
 Derek Hopper Internet Sales Consultant Derek Hopper is the most recent addition to TownNew.com, as a member of the Internet Sales Staff. Derek brings 11 years of newspaper experience to TownNews, working in the Mountain West region. He now works with newspapers throughout the country helping them to develop and implement sales strategies to realize the full potential of their online Newspaper. Derek resides in Utah with his wife Tracy and their four children, where they enjoy all that nature has to offer. |
 Quinn Jennings Online Support Specialist Quinn joined Townnews.com as an online support specialist in March of 2006. Quinn is a graduate of both the University of Iowa and Iowa State University with degrees in Management Information Systems and Biological/Medical Illustration. |
 Cris Johnson Administrative Assistant Cris (CJ) Johnson joined the TownNews staff in November 2001 to provide support services for the Special Web Advertising Team. As the SWAT program expanded, CJ's responsibility evolved to include scheduling, statistical analysis, ad tracking, troubleshooting and even developing some marketing pieces. A promotion in third quarter 2002 brought CJ into the Management Team as Assistant to the General Manager. CJ says her primary focus is to ensure the SWAT machine runs smoothly and to run interference for the SWAT Team Leaders so they can concentrate on what they do best...SELL! CJ came to TownNews with thirty years'experience in sales-, marketing-, and management-support. She lives in a small community near Seattle, has two grown daughters, and shares her home with two dogs and two cats. |
 Rex Kastner Sales Manager, SWAT Division Rex joined the Town News staff in 2001 and currently holds the position of National Sales Manager for our SWAT Division. He has been in the Newspaper Internet business for almost 10 years. His present duties include working with the other SWAT Salespeople, as well as in the field, to implement revenue producing products for newspapers across the county. Before working with newspapers Rex spent over 20 years in the consumer electronics field selling everything from calculators to computers as a manufactures or distributors representative. When not traveling he lives deep in the woods in a log cabin in Northern Minnesota with his wife Melanie and teenage daughters Ashley and Carolynn. They enjoy swimming, boating, skiing, snowmobiling as well as any outdoor activity the north woods have to offer. |
 Trish Kinney Internet Sales Consultant Trish Kinney is our online sales consultant residing in Colbert Washington just north of Spokane. She brings 18 years combined experience to TownNews, working in editorial and marketing for startups seattleonline.com and citysearch.com in the 1990s, and the online sales and training team of Lee Enterprises from 2001-2003, before joining Town News in 2003. "Online news is now a thing of the present and a way of the future. My goal for 2006 is to help everyone I work with realize the power of print and online combined - to increase their advertisers' results and their own bottom line!" |
 Roger Lee Regional Manager Roger manages the sales and marketing efforts east of the Mississippi along with David Sutton. He enjoys partnering with newspaper executives and publishers in their efforts to build their online and print news franchise. "We pioneer together in the melding of the rich tradition of the newspaper business with the quickly evolving new media of the Internet." Roger began with TownNews.com in May of 2002, following nearly three years with CityPapers.com, PowerAdz.com, and PowerOne Media. Roger is a graduate of North Dakota State University. Roger and his wife, Cindy, have three adult sons, and they live in Chaska, MN. |
 Rich Lehl Domain Administrator Rich started in the newspaper business in the late 1980s working for the Bigfork Eagle as a darkroom Tech and photographer. It was during this time at the Eagle that he converted to digital photography. He was then given the opportunity to join I.N.N., a new Internet company, as its first web page designer. Rich has made a living as a farmhand, janitor, house painter, carpenter/cabinet maker, B&W photographer, computer tech, and has a degree in Geology. Rich has a great passion for cooking (and eating) fine foods. |
 Brian Loudon Programmer Brian has been a web developer for various newspaper-related interests over the past several years, and has been writing code at TownNews since early 2004. His projects include AdOwl, AdMarket, and UTL. He spends the majority of his outside-of-work-time reading books, riding bikes, and not watching television. |
 Madeline Mastromarchi Editorial Content Specialist Madeline Mastromarchi achieved her Graphic Design degree from the SAGE College of Albany in NY. She has over 4 years of experience as a graphic designer. Madeline has a vast portfolio of freelance experience as an illustrator and graphic designer, produced and directed a print magazine sponsored by Heineken and Red Bull, and currently directs and designs an online zine. She comes from PowerOne Media where she started in October of 2003 as an Editorial Content Specialist and transitioned into Graphic Design. Madeline enjoys galleries, illustrating, kayaking, mountain biking and electronic music. |
 Sandi McDaniel Website Design Team Leader Sandi started at INN in August 2000. Prior to joining Town News, she worked as a Web Developer for an electronic publishing company that published travel information. She spends her free time camping, fishing and just relaxing with her family in Northwestern Montana. |
Greg Moore Lead Systems Administrator Greg Moore has a long history with computers. He was found in the burning wreckage of the crashed UFO at Roswell NM. He later went on to meet Rear Admiral Grace Hopper but takes no credit for the development of COBOL. Later in life, to lend some credibility to his resume, he attended RPI in Troy NY. There, despite being warned, he drank the water before turning 18, and as such has never really left Troy. In his off-time (what's that he asks?) he spends time with his wife and two kids and also rescues poor stranded cavers out of caves. Despite rumors to the contrary, he does not have a thing against firewalls and flying. In fact he likes firewalls and likes to fly. He just doesn't like the blind faith some people put into firewalls without a real security policy in place. He also doesn't like the hassle associated with being crammed into a flying cylinder like cattle and prefers when possible to travel by the much more civilized method of rail. |
 Chris Murley Senior Systems Administrator Chris (or Murley) started at TownNews in July 2000. Chris came to TownNews with over four years experience doing system administration and internet security. He now heads up the systems department that maintains TownNews's entire online network of over thirty servers based in Chicago, IL and Davenport, IA. Chris likes to play almost any sport, loves fish and spending time with his family. |
Mike Nelms Regional Sales Manager Mike comes to TownNews as a part of the Zwire! aqusition from PowerOne Media. He had been with PowerOne for nearly 9 years. In early 1998 he (then as a part of the Implementation team) launched the first Zwire! site. His responsibilities have ranged from AdQuest sales in 1997 to Implementation, 2nd level technical support, CRM manager of a team of 8, and then back into the sales arena as a Regional Manager. Mike lives in St. Louis, MO with his wife, Kathy and their 3 children. He enjoys music; watching the Cardinals, Blues Hockey, dabbling in web design, digital photography, and watching his 2 youngest kids play sports like baseball, basketball, soccer, and softball. |
 Marc Nelson Website Designer Marc joined TownNews in October of 2004 and brings 10 years of web design and development experience to TownNews. While studying Geology at Illinois State University, Marc changed his major to Graphic Design after the realization that he didn't want to be a "Rock Dork" for the rest of his life. A decision that he is, and will always be, happy with. Marc is married with two children, 2 cats, and a fish. Outside of TownNews, Marc is very active in his church where he maintains the church website and plays bass in the praise & worship band. |
 Patrick O'Lone Programing Team Leader Patrick has been working for INN since April of 1998. In his spare time, Patrick likes to play console RPGs, read tech books, watch the news, follow the NASDAQ, and program applications for personal projects. |
 Randy Olsen Online Support Specialist Randy graduated from St. Ambrose University in May of 2004. He started at Townnews.com in November of 2004 as a Customer Support Representative. He is now working with Zwire as a Project Manager and is relocating to Albany, NY. |
 Robert Pociluk Quality Assurance Manager Rob brings over 7 years of experience as the Quality Assurance Manager for TownNews.com, having spent the past 6 years with PowerOne Media. Rob is responsible for managing the QA process, the testing of all code and database changes, and promotion of those changes to the live servers. Rob is married and lives with his wife Pamela and their 10 (yes, 10) cats. |
 Bruce Pogue Project Manager Bruce started working at Town News in 2003, combining his interests in teaching and computers. He enjoys training newspapers and helping them solve problems on their website. After teaching high school math and computers for 10 years, Bruce worked for 25 years at Mississippi Bend Area Education Agency as a computer consultant. He provided 23 school districts with Macintosh support and taught numerous college-level computer courses. He helped start the Quad City Mac User's Group. Bruce enjoys volleyball, boating, and his cabin on the Mississippi. |
 Carol Rockwell Accounting Carol started working at TownNews as a temp in October 2005 and became a permanent employee in February 2006. Carol has over 25 years accounting experience. Carol lives in East Moline, IL with her husband, Ray, and their black cocker spaniel, Shelby. They have 3 children, Tom, Jennifer and Reanne, plus 1 granddaughter, Maddelyn Rae and are expecting another grandchild in July 2006!!! |
Joe Rourke Director of Product Management Joe joined the TownNews team as Director of Product Management. He had been a product manager for PowerOne Media for the past 5 years and previously the VP of product development. Joe started out his career as a programmer. His positions at previous companies have spanned marketing, customer service and implementations. Joe lives in Latham, NY. with his wife Joanne, a nurse practioner. |
 Linda Rowlee Regional Manager Linda Rowlee is the Regional Sales Manager in the West and manages the sales and marketing activities of California, Oregon, Washington,Utah,Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona. Before joining our sales force, Linda was the Western Regional Manager for Flywheel Media, where she also managed sales of print and online content verticals to newspapers. Prior to that she comes with twenty years experience at the Antelope Valley Press in Palmdale, Ca. as Retail Advertising Director. Linda lives in Sacramento, Ca. with her husband Patrick, an educator. She enjoys reading, wine tasting and golfing in her spare time. |
 Steve Saxton SWAT Steve joined the Town News staff in January 2005. He started in the Newspaper Internet business in 1996, when he was one of the original founders of CityPapers.com. After taking a couple of years off to work as a software project manger, he came back into the industry with his current position as an Internet Sales Consultant with TownNews.com. Steve resides on a lake in Northern Minnesota with his wife Shari and enjoys as hobbies all of the activites associated with the water such as water skiing, boating, riding the jet ski's and just kicking back every now and then and watching the loons play on the lake. With 8 children, their lives have always been very busy and they had to plan everything around their sports and extracuricular activities. Now that most of them have reached the age where they are starting lives of their own, things runs at a slightly slower pace. He really enjoys the ever changing world of the Online Newspaper Industry and the fast moving pace that accompanies it. |
Sarah Simson Regional Sales Manager I joined to TownNews.com from the PowerOne/Zwire team. Prior to that, I worked in consulting and training for systems administration & development. A native of Minnesota, I graduated from the University of Washington and the University of Colorado. After taking a circuitous route around the country, I ended up in Upstate New York, where my husband, Jay, and I are avid skiers and golfers. |
 Kelly Steuck Website Designer Kelly joined the TownNews team in November 2002 after exploring various avenues of the newspaper industry. She comes from the River Valley Newspaper Group, a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises, headquartered in La Crosse, WI. There, she was a prep sport reporter at the La Crosse Tribune, and a sales & marketing assistant at the Winona Daily News. Her love for journalism and web design keeps her very happy here. In addition to her work at TownNews, Kelly is a freelance journalist for the Quad-City Times. She aslo freelances in graphics and web design. In 2003, her boyfriend, Justin Hendershot, joined the TownNews staff. Kelly and Justin were engaged on December 14, 2005 and are planning a July 14, 2007 wedding. |
 Dave Sutton Regional Manager David A. Sutton With more than 25 years experience in the newspaper industry; the last 10 years with online publications as well, Sutton has established himself in the industry as an authority on the tools and applications newspapers use to grow their print and online products. As one of the founders of 1up! Software, for the past seven years, Sutton has worked with small, medium and large newspapers across the country matching Internet software applications with newspaper's online needs. His extensive background in newspaper and online sales has helped sales staffs create revenue models that fit their skills and marketplaces. With new technologies and a rapidly changing Internet environment, Sutton's knowledge in both print and online can help guide and prepare your newspaper for long-term, profitable success. |
 David Thole Programmer David Thole is a recent graduate of the University of Iowa and newish emplyee of Townnews. In his free time he enjoys to play World of Warcraft (gutrak on Uther) and personal programming/web page projects. He lives in Davenport with his cat and hamster. |
 Fritz Tschopp Online Support Specialist Fritz joined TownNews in April 2005 as a member of the Customer Support team. |
 Edwina Umphrey Customer Support Team Lead Edwina (Eddi) Umphrey brings 20 years of newspaper experience to TownNews. After 15 years in various positions in classified she joined the Corporate Office and worked on supporting both C-Text AdVision and Dateline. Being born and raised in Missoula, Eddi, her husband David and children, Evan and Yvette moved from Montana to the Midwest. |
 Edward Valentine Technical Writer/Online Support Representative Ed is a Technical Writer/Technical Support rep, the same role he filled with PowerOne Media. Ed is responsible for maintaining Zwire! University, and for a variety of other customer communications. Ed has nearly 20 years of newspaper experience as a writer and editor, and has also done freelance work for a number of publications. |
 Cindy Verhagen General Manager Fyndesign Cindy has 11 years in the newspaper industry, having spent 8 1/2 years with PowerOne Media and Add Inc/Journal Communications before becoming founder of her own company. In 2003, she left PowerOne Media and started fyndesign!, a company specializing in helping newspapers make money by posting online special sections and artistic display ads. Cindy lives in Waupaca, Wisconsin, with her husband Mark, son Jack and daughter Ashley. |
 Brad Ward Operations Manager Previously Brad managed the IDT team for Lee Enterprises, and was responsible for production systems at Lee. In his spare time he's an EMT and firefighter (which comes in handy here) for the Sherrard Community Fire Protection District. He also likes to ride motocross motorcycles and occasionally lets Lee's CIO beat him in their races. Brad's wife, Lisa, and he also have three kids, 2 dogs, 3 cats, and an assortment of birds. |
 Dustin Ward Systems Administrator Dustin started as an intern in the Summer of 2001 and 2002. He was hired as a programmer in late 2002, and was subsequently hired in late 2003 as a Systems Administrator. He is currently attending Black Hawk College part-time and majoring in Computer Science. |
 Melanie Weis Website Designer Melanie is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa where she studied graphic communications and marketing. Melanie has been with TownNews since October '04. Outside of TownNews, she can be found playing volleyball, coaching, spending time with friends & family, and relaxing at home. |
 Ginny Wilson Website Designer Ginny Wilson edited copy and layed out pages for the Chicago Sun-Times, the Arizona Republic and the Rocky Mountain News before she and her husband, Marc, bought the Bigfork Eagle in 1983, a weekly newspaper in Northwest Montana. As associate publisher she edited and layed out the Eagle for 15 years. Five months after the Wilsons sold the Eagle to Lee Enterprises, Ginny went to work for INN, designing web pages. She is a 1969 graduate of the University of Colorado School of Journalism. She and Marc have a son, Paul, who is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and is business editor of the West Virginia Gazette in Charleston. She likes reading historical fiction, especially English history, hiking, and walking with their black lab, Zeke, and trying to play tennis. |
 Marc Wilson CEO/General Manager Marc Wilson, CEO, founded I.N.N. in 1989 while editor/publisher of the Bigfork (Mt.) Eagle. He was a reporter for three daily newspapers and worked for five bureaus of The Associated Press, including duties as Assistant Chief of Bureau for Texas. He and his wife, Ginny, were honored as Master Editor/Publishers in 2004 by the Montana Newspaper Association. |
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