Alumni |
Nate Matthews |
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"My classes at the Knight Center showed me I could make a career out of doing what I love, and introduced me to the tools I needed make that happen." |
I graduated from Michigan State University in May of 2003 with a bachelor’s in agriculture and natural resource communications, and spent the summer backpacking research equipment around Glacier National Park for the U.S. Geological Survey's Northern Divide Grizzly Bear DNA Project. In fall 2003, I signed on with the National Wild Turkey Federation (a non-profit hunting and conservation group) as its Web content editor, where I managed a total site overhaul and eventually became editor of the organization's entire public relations output. By that time, though, I was ready to get out of PR. I wanted the chance to work on content purely for its own sake. I applied for a job as an associate editor at New York City-based Salt Water Sportsman magazine, one of the titles owned by the company soon-to-be-formerly-known-as Time4 Media (we're in the throes of a sale right now). SWS's editorial director was also editor in chief of Field & Stream (a much bigger magazine) and when he saw my application called me up and asked if I'd rather work directly for him at F&S. I said yes (insert dream job cliché here) and so was hired as the magazine's fishing editor in January '05. I was initially responsible for editing a six-page FOB section (the Sportsman's Notebook) and the trout, bass and fishing columns, as well as various features. And I sat in on online division planning meetings regularly. After about eight months of magazine work, I shifted my focus to online, and so was given the reins of fieldandstream.com in October '05. This brought me greater autonomy, the chance to put more of my own ideas in action and, because of the instant reporting provided by Web stats, a laboratory with which to test and tweak those ideas. It's been a gamble that's paid off : Since I've taken over site traffic has increased by nearly 600 percent. There's a lot of growing left to do. Right now we're in the middle of a site-wide redesign that will reposition our brand as an agile consumer of Web 2.0 technologies. Look for it sometime in the spring of '07! |
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