DJ came to Western News&Info, Inc. (WNI) with more than 20 years of operational management and Human Resources experience for the fast paced retail industry. During her career in the retail industry, DJ focused on training and development, employee benefits/safety programs and payroll administration. Born in Montebello, Ca., and graduating from high school in Montana, DJ moved to Yuma, Arizona in 1982. Hired as the corporate employee benefits coordinator for WNI in 1996, she quickly moved up the ranks. Within 2 years, DJ assumed responsibility for WNI’s company-wide HR function along with training/development. In 2000, DJ was promoted to WNI’s Human Resources Director. DJ was named Vice President of Western News&Info, Inc. in 2003.

Community Affairs and Organizations:

Kelly was born and raised in Yuma, Ariz., then moved on to Tucson for high school and college. After attending Catalina Foothills High School, she went to the University of Arizona and graduated in May 2003 with a bachelor's degree in fine arts with an emphasis in photography. Kelly then moved to Orange County, Calif., and used her photographic skills during an internship at the Bower's Museum in Santa Ana. While working there, she had some photographs published in the Los Angeles Times.

Kelly came onboard with the family business to become the fourth generation to work for newspapers throughout the state of Arizona. She moved to Prescott and began working for Prescott Newspapers, Inc., in the Editorial Department. After four years of working with PNI, Kelly has experienced many facets of the operational side of the newspaper business and has now become Associate Vice President of Western News&Info, Inc., and General Manager of Prescott Newspapers, Inc. She also is Vice President of Desert Foothills Newspapers, Inc.

Brett Soldwedel lived in Tucson, AZ during his teenage years and graduated from Catalina Foothills High School in 2001. After high school he moved to Flagstaff to attend Northern Arizona University. Brett graduated from NAU with a bachelor of sciences degree in business management in 2006. He was a member of the social fraternity Sigma Nu while attending NAU and held numerous positions within including treasurer.

Brett has been an employee of WNI since he was 11-years-old laboring in the summers and worked part-time for the Navajo-Hopi Observer publication and Community Directory phone book throughout his college career. He did a number of functions for the NHO and CD including writing, photography and sales.

After graduating Brett moved to S. Lake Tahoe, NV to work as a casino games dealer for a year before pursuing a career with WNI. He moved to Kingman in January 2008 and continued working for WNI at the Kingman Daily Miner newspaper and performs a variety of tasks. Like his sister he is the fourth generation of the Soldwedel family to go into the newspaper business and looks forward to helping carry on the media industry with his family.

After teaching high school for five years, John started his newspaper career in 1974 as a salesman at the Arizona Republic. He was promoted to Sales Manager in 1979 and later was appointed Director of Training and Development for The Republic. Lindsey was hired as Marketing Director for Independent Newspapers in 1984 and named Publisher of The Scottsdale Independent in 1986. He formed Lindsey & Associates in 1987 and has taught sales and management workshops for newspapers throughout the United States, Canada and U.S Territories. He has also conducted workshops for 35 State Newspaper Associations, for American Press Institute, and for Newspaper Association of America. In addition to his workshops for newspapers, Lindsey conducts advertising and marketing seminars for retail businesses on behalf of newspapers. Some of Lindsey’s newspapers clients include: The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, the Detroit Free Press, The Hartford Courant, Tucson Newspapers, Inc., and the Houston Chronicle. Over the years, Lindsey has conducted many sales and management workshops for Western News&Info, Inc. and joined the organization as Group Marketing Director in October of 2005.

Dick Larson is a thirty-three-year veteran of the newspaper and newsprint publishing business. Twenty-six of those years have been with Western Newspapers starting from advertising account representative, advancing into management and 20 years as a WNI location publisher. In his current position, Dick works with all WNI properties in areas that include sales training, marketing and product development. He is a graduate of the University of Washington, Seattle and was raised in the Northwest before moving to Arizona. Dick currently serves on the Arizona Newspaper Association board of directors and chairs the marketing committee.

Richard Haddad is a veteran of the United States Air Force and published his first works in the Air Force newspaper. After leaving the military he went to school for art and illustration. He began producing corporate newsletters and freelancing for newspapers in the 1980s. He joined the Gannett Newspaper group in 1990. In1996 he left Gannett to be the Publisher of the Payson Roundup, a twice-weekly community newspaper in Payson, Arizona owned by WorldWest, LLC/World Company.

Over the next decade, Richard led the Payson team to be named Newspaper of the Year for nine consecutive years by the Arizona Newspapers Association. During that time, the Roundup was also named Inland Press Nation’s Best newspaper for 2000 and 2001.

Overseeing all online operations in Payson, Richard led his Web team to be awarded Best Newspaper Website in 2005 by the National Newspapers Association.

Applying a hands-on approach to produce community newspapers online and in print, Richard has won numerous state and national awards for photography, illustration, writing and multimedia projects. He accepted the position of Web Operations Director with Western News&Info, Inc. in March 2007.