Me, the Editor

I have been the editor of BYU Magazine for 14 years. In my job, I lead a talented group of editors, writers, designers, and students in the creation of a magazine mailed four times a year to about 270,000 readers in some 200,000 homes. If all of our readers got a seat to a BYU football game, LaVell Edwards Stadium would need to be four and a half times bigger than it is now. Imagine four and a half stadiums full of people. That's how many people get the magazine.



As the editor, I do some writing, a bit more editing, and a lot of managing and planning. I once wrote an article about BYU's dairy, and I got to milk cows for a morning while doing my research. I got up about 4 a.m. and spent about five hours staring at the hind quarters of cows—more than 400 of them who came in and out of the milking parlor. It was one of the funnest things I've done in my job.


Another time, I got to go to Scotland and visit BYU students who were doing internships with the Scottish Parliament. I have also shaken hands with President Hinckley, visited Nauvoo, followed the BYU ballroom dancers through Belgium and France, and sat in the press box for a couple of BYU football games.

For one issue, I arranged for Cosmo to come to our photo studio, and I helped him with the photo shoot for our cover. He even wore my belt because he didn't bring one. Here's a slideshow we made of the photo shoot:



Most days, however, I sit at my desk and edit articles, write and respond to e-mail messages, and plan and manage the process of creating a magazine. We have a lot of deadlines and a lot of people working on those deadlines. I enjoy coming up with ideas, working with writers, sharing ideas with photographers and artists, and see the finished magazine come out at the end. And during our weekly meetings, we play speed Scrabble.

In addition to the magazine, our staff produces a monthly e-mail newsletter for more than 200,000 readers, and we maintain a website, a Facebook page, an iTunes podcast, a Twitter feed, and a YouTube channel. The magazine frequently wins awards for both writing and design, and our readers tell us they value the content we put in the magazine.

I earned a bachelor's degree in communications from BYU and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. I enjoy camping and hiking and Scouting. I used to have a sailboat and a motorcycle. Now I have a beautiful wife and two cute daughters. We love to play games like Ticket to Ride and Blockus, and my wife and my 10-year-old—who are both much smarter than I—often win.