Well, new job title.

Jana Hollingsworth and I now comprise the Duluth News Tribune’s investigative reporting team, and I can’t thank my editors enough for the opportunity to focus on the biggest and best stories our readers deserve.

Right to it then —

It’s no secret that good day care is increasingly hard to come by, in Minnesota or elsewhere. But the reason so many providers are leaving the business? Cindy Giuliani decided to take a stand by contacting me and telling of a hostile work environment between licensors and providers, offering a window into a profession rarely seen as such.

For this story written by Peter Passi I contributed some data handiwork that also led to an interactive map. Nearly $149 million could be locked up in special tax districts in Duluth over the next few decades, starving county, city and school coffers of much-needed revenue. But could those taxpaying developments exist if not for this incentive?

My first story of 2018 was on the Year of the Woman, a local look at the national echo of 1992, and the top story of 2017 was our chasing of the Enbridge Line 3 replacement pipeline debate.

Though it wasn’t my job title until recently, I certainly took an investigative approach to my work on the business beat, as seen in this piece on a golf course fallen on hard times or a look at what local elected officials (should?) make.

On the more business-y side of things, I wrote about the fierce digital embrace and defense of brick-and-mortar happening at Maurices, a local locomotive crane shop, some rare new housing in Duluth and a look at exactly what five people must consider when deciding whether to approve or deny Line 3.

And then apparently people my age (I’m still young, right?) are managing financial planning offices. One of my best profiles to date.

Oh, and I got to write about soccer. Go Loons.