Grew up in a small, sports-obsessed town in Central Massachusetts and attended three local colleges in five years, eventually graduating Framingham State with an English degree in 2007.  According to a letter to my future self that I wrote as an eighth-grader, I've long had dreams of becoming a sports journalist But I didn't really do anything about it until my third semester at FSC (now U). That's when my professor (thanks, Desmond) convinced me to quit messing around in nonsense classes, join the school paper and get an internship.  I did. I was hired out of college to the Bedford Minuteman newspaper, and bounced around to a few of the Minuteman's sister papers, including The Concord Journal and Belmont Citizen-Herald, before joining Patch in April 2011 as Lexington's editor. 

Rob Fucci is a 16-year award-winning journalist who earned his degree in broadcast journalism from Northeastern University. He was raised in Natick and currently lives just over the border in Framingham with his wife, Lesley. (Ask him about her desserts!) Rob will have updates about Sudbury on Facebook and Twitter. And if you see him around town,  stop to say "hi."

Andrew Sylvia is the local editor of the Westford and Chelmsford Patch.

He has written at least one piece for every Patch in Massachusetts north of Boston and has had bylines in more than a dozen newspapers in Vermont and New Hampshire, including The Telegraph of Nashua, the Milford Cabinet, Bedford Journal, the Hollis-Brookline Journal, the Keene Sentinel, the Pelham-Windham News, and the New Hampshire Union Leader. He also has contributed to various websites such as NHReporter.com, Ehow and the New Hampshire Sports Report after receiving  a bachelor's degree in Journalism from Keene State College in 2004.

Bill is 45 years old, married with two teen sons. Bill has been in journalism 23 years at various daily and weekly publications in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He got his start in sports journalism, but his heart is in hometown community coverage.

Grant began his interest in broadcast journalism when he was in high school after volunteering with a local television station in Northern Virginia.  During his college days, Grant was a reporter for Boston University Television's Inside Boston, a student-run news show.  He also worked for Kitay Productions at the Agganis Arena in Boston doing video production during sports events.

This past spring, Grant was an intern at WGBH (PBS) as the Antiques Roadshow Web Intern.  He has also interned with Public Synergies and Rpublictv in Asnières-Sur-Seine, France (a suburb of Paris).  Through this internship, Grant produced a variety of  projects including multimedia presentations for a convention.  He was also given the opportunity to see how the industry operates outside North America.

Jay has been a Patch writer since September, 2010.

He's also a high school English and Journalism teacher in Lawrence, MA.

Jay earned his Master's degree at Northeastern University and his Bachelor's at UMass-Dartmouth. 

Ed Symkus has been writing personality profiles for daily and weekly newspapers since 1987. Interviews have ranged from people working in the arts and sports to business owners and politicians. He and his wife, Lisa, have lived in West Roxbury for 22 years and are avid fans of travel. Ed is currently a freelance film and music critic (favorite film: "And Now My Love," favorite band: the Beatles), and has fond memories of attending Woodstock.

Ryan has worked in local news since 2007 when he started as a reporter for a weekly newspaper in Charlton, Massachusetts. Two months before jumping to Patch, he started work at the company's daily newspaper in Southbridge.

He was born in Vermont, but grew up Newton, Massachusetts, and graduated from Newton North High School in 2001. From there, he attended Quinnipiac University for two years before transferring to American University, where he later attained a degree in International Affairs in 2006. 

Robert Cook's journalism career began when he walked into the Salem State Log's newsroom at what was then Salem State College in 1982 and asked if he could write a news story. From the moment the front-page story about SSC's parking woes hit the college newstands, he was hooked. Bob went on to work for several weekly and daily newspapers in Massachusetts, such as the Swampscott Reporter and Newburyport Daily News, and at Foster's Daily Democrat and the Portsmouth Herald in New Hampshire, and for Mainebiz in Portland, Maine before joining Patch. After launching and managing the Peabody.Patch.com site in his home town in Massachusetts, Bob moved onto his current role as Local Editor of Portsmouth-NH Patch.

Franklin Tucker has been a Belmontonian for the past 17 years. He's spent the last two decades as an editor and has won five New England regional journalism awards. Franklin is looking forward to using his experience and background to have a positive impact on the people of and institutions in Belmont as the Belmont Patch editor.

Since graduating from Boston University, Danielle has had two successful careers in news writing and teaching at the elementary school level. She loves to listen to music, crochet and read. She lives in the Greater Boston area with her husband and their two dogs, Jake and Chloe. 

Phil Meyer is Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame in Journalism in the spring of 2008.  He joined the Journalism School in 1981 and served as Knight Chair in Journalism Professor from 1993-2008.  Prior to joining the school, he held a number of reporter and research positions at various media outlets. 

He has won numerous awards including the 2005 Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Research About Journalism (with Scott Maier). He was named a Fellow of Society of Professional Journalists in 2005. In 2004, the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication gave him its Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award. And in 2000 he received the American Association for Public Opinion Research Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement.

Meyer is the author of several books including The Vanishing Newspaper:  Saving Journalism in the Information Age and Precision Journalism:  A Reporter’s Introduction to Social Science Methods.  Journalism Quarterly in 2000 listed this book as one of the 35 significant books of the 20th century in journalism and mass communication; and the American Association for Public Opinion Research, observing its 50th anniversary in 1996, listed it as one of 50 significant books on public opinion research.

He received his B.S. in technical journalism from Kansas State University and his M.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina.

Steven Berlin Johnson is a pioneer in the web world, as a co-founder of FEED, Plastic.com, and Outside.in, which was acquired by Patch in March of 2011. He also co-created Findings.com, which launched in late 2011. Steven was the 2009 Hearst New Media Professional-in-Residence at The Journalism School at Columbia University, and served for several years as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU’s Journalism School. He is a bestselling author of seven books, and won acclaim and a Newhouse School Mirror Award for his 2010 Time Magazine cover story, "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live." 

Speaking of Steven's editorial prowess, check out this video based on Steven's book, Where Good Ideas Come From, which was named one of the best books of 2010 by The Economist.

Brian was Editor-in-Chief of Time Out New York magazine before coming to Patch. Before that he worked for a variety of publications both online and off, including Details magazine, New York Magazine, and the old, dearly departed Sidewalk.com. He has written for numerous publications, from the New York Times magazine to Harper's Bazaar. He graduated from Bowdoin College and got an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University so he could put his novel in a drawer with distinction. He lives in Manhattan with his beautiful wife, adorable son, angelic daughter and the world's most dog-like cat. He’s proud as hell of what the Patch team has built.

Ken Paulson is president and chief executive officer of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University and in Washington, D.C.

Previously, Paulson served as the editor and senior vice president/news of USA Today.  He is now a columnist on USA Today’s board of contributors, writing about First Amendment issues and the news media.

Throughout his career, Paulson has drawn on his background as both a journalist and lawyer, serving as the editor or managing editor of newspapers in five different states.

He also is past-president of the American Society of News Editors, the nation’s largest organization of news media leaders.

Paulson also was the host of the Emmy-honored television program “Speaking Freely,” seen in more than 60 PBS markets nationwide over five seasons, and the author of "Freedom Sings," a multimedia stage show celebrating the First Amendment that continues to tour the nation's campuses.  

He was an early advocate of making newspaper content available online, launching online newspapers in both Florida and New York in 1993.

For 12 years, Paulson was a regular guest lecturer at the American Press Institute, speaking to more than 5,000 journalists about First Amendment issues. He was honored with the API Lifetime Service Award. In 2010 and 2011, he served as chair of the PBS Editorial Standards Review Committee.

In 2007, Paulson was named fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, “the highest honor SPJ bestows upon a journalist for extraordinary contributions to the profession.” In 2008, he  received the Robert S. Abbott Memorial Award for Meritorious Service in Mass Communications from the Southern Regional Press Institute. He has also been elected to the Illini Publishing Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois.

He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He also has served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. In 2008, he received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from American University.