What Makes Me Proud

When I look back at what I've done in my professional career, the one legacy I can really point to is the opportunity I've given to people I've hired. My decisions permanently changed the trajectories of people's lives. That is a weight and responsibility I still take seriously today, years after those decisions have been made.

It makes me proud to see people whom I've hired go on to big things, pursue their dreams and find that thing they most want out of life.

Today, I learned one of those hires, Dori Olmos, has taken a job at WUSA, the CBS affiliate in Washington, D.C. I found Dori on a recruiting trip in the fall of 2007 at Mizzou. She was a May graduate, a producing rock star. I was looking for someone to help launch the 4:30 p.m. news for KSPR. She had her stuff together and I invited her down. We had lunch at the Springfield Brewing Company. She ordered macaroni & cheese.

She did well. I gave her Greg Leuthen when we expanded to an hour at 4 p.m. She hung around KSPR after I moved out of that newsroom and became an executive producer at KRCG, CBS in Jefferson City. It kept her closer to her long time boyfriend Jason as he finished medical school at Mizzou. But a smaller station with fewer resources also presented its share of challenges.

Shortly after I left Springfield, she returned, this time succeeding Chris Replogle, the 6 p.m. producer who succeeding me as the digital content boss. She didn't last long. Jason finished school and Dori was eager for him to be matched to the Tampa Bay area. Instead he landed at John Hopkins. Dori followed as a morning producer in Baltimore. She reached out to me a few months in, tired of the hours and the philosophy of the ownership, seeking a recommendation for a non-news job. That must not have materialized because she's still there and will be until she moves over to WUSA. (Another connection here: the news director, Fred, is a Mizzou grad. I met him in Austin, Texas, in October 2011.)

I can always say I was her first boss. Perhaps someday she can return the gesture.

Jasmine Huda's story is another I'm proud to talk about. She was on the tail end of her two years at KSPR when I arrived in October 2006. She was the star reporter and managed to get herself to KSDK. On her way out, she went to my boss, Mike Scott, and said she could not have gotten there without the coaching she received from me during our short time to work together. It's good to know I made a difference.

There are others who've come and gone. Some I've kept up with; other I've lost to time.