This is my writing portfolio, with a focus on personal finance, business and technology. For my UX and Content Design portfolio, visit hicodybay.com.
Articles
The Powerful Stories of America’s Favorite Small Businesses
GoBankingRates is a personal finance website that does a brilliant job of making financial matters and advice understandable, personable and actionable. They also have a strong focus on community and the people and small businesses that power so many important local economic engines.
For this piece that was featured in their 2021 Small Business Spotlight, they asked me dig into the role small businesses play in their communities, and why people are so loyal to them.
The Future of Small Business: Why 48% of Americans Are Spending More at Smaller Shops
More work for GoBankingRates:
The Future of Retirement: How Costs Will Change for the Next Generations
5 Ways Women Can Take Control of Their Finances
Technical Blog Writing
After 8 years writing and editing for Microsoft at MSN, I made a shift to writing about Microsoft, as a Technical Blog Writer and Content PM for Microsoft’s Inside Track blog. These stories provide a fascinating glimpse into how Microsoft uses its own technology to solve internal problems – and by extension, addressing similar pains and opportunities for growth for many of its customers.
Boosting internal audits at Microsoft with audit digitization, machine learning
Mighty Tieton – Seattle magazine
I met Ed Marquand years ago at a dinner party. He was totally giddy and brimming with excitement over a major enterprise he was undertaking: creating a Seattle satellite artists’ colony of sorts in a tiny, depressed Yakima Valley fruit town. He was in the process of buying up empty fruit warehouses with the intention of turning them into lofts and work studios and was trying to attract other creative types to his cause.
I tucked Ed away in my mind with a note to check back down the road and see how his Mighty Tieton was turning out. When he popped back onto my radar a couple of years later, I figured the time was right. I pitched the story to Seattle magazine and got the feature published in their June 2011 issue.
Valley Village: Big city ambition meets small-town charm in the Yakima Valley town of Tieton (June 2011)
Farewell to a virtuoso – City Arts
Most people in the Seattle area had no idea that one of the most legendary violists in the world was living in their midst. Emmanuel Vardi played with everyone from Frank Sinatra to The Beatles. You’ve heard his work if you’ve ever seen Blade Runner, Fame, or almost any classic Disney movie. I spent an afternoon with Manny and his wife, Lenore, at their home in North Bend in 2009, where they spent their days teaching and painting in shadow of Mount Si. My recording of Manny playing Paganini’s Caprice’s has been one of my favorite CDs to work to ever since – the way his amazingly agile bear paws own its twists, turns and challenges always inspires me to write outside the box. Manny passed away in 2011 at the age of 95, and I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to tell his story.
Duet, Sustained (October 2009)
Celebrating Green – Seattle Bride
My piece in this Spring/Summer issue profiled six Washington wedding venues that recognize the impact that a large celebration has on the environment and go the extra mile to make weddings glow with green goodness. Plus, in this issue I did double duty — Brandon and I tied the knot in June and we were featured in the “Local Weddings of Note” section in the back!
Green Girl Venues (Spring/Summer 2010)
The Pros of Hiring a Pro – Seattle Bride
Seattle Bride approached me for this Fall/Winter issue asking me to attend a wedding as… a photographer. I can take a decent shot, but a professional wedding photographer? Not quite. There’s a reason people pay $4,000 minimum for someone who makes their bacon doing it.
And that was exactly their point. I was to shadow a pro, taking the same shots at the same time, have mine published in the magazine next to theirs, and write about the experience. Could a “pretty good amateur” get the money shots, or is it worth it to splurge for a pro?
Read the story: The Pros of Hiring a Pro (Fall/Winter 2009)
Trip magazine
For the better part of 2008, I had quite a dream job. The Seattle Times had launched a new monthly travel magazine aimed at the young and adventurous, a refreshing antidote to the typical Sunday travel pages. On assignment for Trip, I trekked through an exotic biosphere of Mexico’s Serria Madre mountains; slept in a yurt in the funky, artsy enclave of Homer, Alaska; and joined the French Canadians to usher in the 400-year anniversary of Quebec City in a very modern style.
As the newspaper industry’s struggles compounded in the latter part of the year, Trip ended up in the obituaries along with so many other of our dearly deceased publications. To this day it remains one of the highlights of my career.
Trip magazine: Sierra Gorda, Mexico (April 2008)
And the 400th Anniversary of Quebec. My cover photo for this issue won Trip an Honorable Mention for Best Section Cover from the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Advertising Executives Association.
Quebec: 400 and cooler than ever (September 2008)
More from Trip:
Yakima Valley: No pretense in the wine region down the road
Puget Sound Business Journal
When I moved back home from New York to Seattle, one of the first local publications I connected with was the Puget Sound Business Journal. They sent some cool business and tech stories my way, which proved to be a fascinating way to explore my native city, which had gone through quite a boom in my absence, with new eyes. I particularly enjoyed the package of stories I did for their Biotech issue in March 2005.
Phase two: Maturing R&D companies need a place to manufacture
Other pieces:
Lawyers study estates, world peace to satisfy rule
State’s 250 private vocational colleges losing stigma, gaining visibility and boosting enrollments
