About AAJA - Michigan Chapter
Caption: Chapter president Rachel Calderon with CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta at convention. Gupta was the keynote speaker at the 2006 convention gala banquet.
Chapter History
On August 10, 2002 a group of 20 journalists from Michigan went before AAJA's National Board at the Dallas convention to pitch the idea of a Michigan chapter. The group was granted probationary status and by the 2003 convention in San Diego, AAJA Michigan became the 19th chapter of AAJA.
However, the chapter's history goes back several years. AAJA-Detroit was founded in 1988 with Ti-Hua Chang serving as its first president. But by 1995 when the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News went on strike, several chapter members left the state and the chapter officially folded.
By 2001, journalists from Detroit, Lansing and Grand Rapids met at WILX-TV in Lansing for its first official meeting on how to form a Michigan chapter. By August of 2002, they were ready for the challenge set by the National Board when it was granted probationary status.
In its first year as a chapter, AAJA-Michigan under the leadership of Ron Recinto of the Detroit Free Press, AAJA-Michigan began hosting a variety of events which have become annual programs. Student Pizza Nights have been held at Michigan State University and Grand Valley State University. A silent auction has been held since 2003 at Michigan Association of Broadcasters convention.
The Michigan chapter is made up of approximately 30 members throughout the Great Lake State.
Meet your board members
Rachel Calderon- president
E-mail: rcalderon@wxmi.com
Rachel is the weekend anchor/reporter for WXMI Fox 17 News at Ten.
She previously worked at the CBS station in Cheyenne, Wyoming and the NBC affiliate in Lansing, Michigan. In 2004, Rachel was hired by NBC to be an associate producer at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Her work in Greece won her a National Sports Emmy Award. Rachel was born in Detroit and raised in St. Clair, Michigan.
She is a 2000 graduate of the University of Southern California. When she is not working, you might find her playing tennis, scrapbooking, singing at her church, or planning her 2007 wedding. She is currently the president of the Michigan chapter of the Asian American Journalist Association.
Colleen Chen- Vice President of Broadcast
E-mail:
collchen@wwmt.com
Colleen is a full-time nightside reporter for WWMT-TV and is based out of the main newsroom in Kalamazoo. Prior to coming to West Michigan, she worked as a reporter and fill-in anchor at WUFT-TV in Florida. It was during her time in the sunshine state that she was honored for her work by a number of news organizations, including SPJ and the Associated Press.
A true girl of the South, her home town is Atlanta and she has also worked on-air at WJCL/WTGS in Savannah, Georgia. Despite growing up in Georgia, Colleen is a graduate of the University of Florida's award winning broadcasting program.
Chris Lau
E-mail:
clau@freepress.com
Chris is a high school sports reporter at the Detroit Free Press. He's been there since January. He graduated from the University of California at Davis in June 2005, interned in sports at the Chicago Tribune and then moved to Michigan for the job. Previously, he interned as a news-side reporter for a couple of small papers near his hometown of Walnut Creek, California. He is fascinated by any geological occurance, snakes, big-city skylines and loves to try new foods, ride subway trains, be in undisturbed nature and play sports and Scrabble. If he wasn't a journalist, he'd want to be a New York City subway driver or high school teacher and coach.
Frank Witsil- National Board Representative
E-mail:
fwitsil@freepress.com
Frank is a staff writer at the Detroit Free Press and he has won state awards for his reporting and writing. Recently, he spent nearly three years covering a high profile and mysterious murder at a posh northern Michigan resort. A Floridian, he has worked as a reporter at several newspapers, including The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune, Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune and The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. Last year, he completed a six-month program offered at the Free Press, designed to expose participants to various parts of the newspaper operations. He is a graduate of Florida State University, where he was a Poynter Fund Scholar; and serves on the Asian American Journalist Association's Board of Directors.
Ron Recinto- Treasurer
E-mail:
rrecinto@freepress.com
Ron Recinto is an Assistant Features Editor at the Detroit Free Press, primarily in charge of the Weekend section, the Tech Life page and the Game On! page. He has been at the Free Press since September 2001. He was an Assistant Metro Editor before moving to features. Before coming to the Free Press, Ron worked as a staff writer for Red Herring magazine, a new economy publication based in San Francisco. He has been in editing and reporting roles in various newspapers around the country including: The Charlotte Observer in Charlotte, N.C.; The State in Columbia, S.C.; the (Gary, Ind.) Post-Tribune and the Cape Cod Times in Hyannis, Mass.
Ron has been an active member of the Asian American Journalists Association for more than a decade. He served on AAJA’s National Board from 1994 to 1997 and currently participates in their Executive Leadership Program and National Fellowship Awards committee. Ron is president of the Michigan chapter.
Ron is Filipino-American and a native of Indiana. He graduated from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana and has a master’s degree in reporting on science and medicine from Boston University.
Erin Chan - Secretary and Social Chair
Erin
is a general assignment features writer at the Detroit Free Press. She
started at the newspaper in February 2004 as a metro reporter. During
her time at the Free Press, she has gone hot air ballooning, drag racing,
roller derbying and somehow found herself inside a Muay Thai fighting
ring. She has chronicled more serious issues, too, like the life and death
of a local female soldier in Iraq and domestic violence against Asian
American women.
A 2003 graduate of Northwestern University, Erin completed internships at The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press, the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald before taking a job back at the Free Press. She also received two AAJA scholarships after graduating from high school in suburban Chicago.
In college, where Erin majored in journalism and history, she studied
abroad in Salamanca, Spain, and wrote a thesis in Mexico about the Chinese
in Mexicali during the Mexican Revolution. She speaks Spanish, Cantonese,
has run four marathons and has a black belt in tae kwon do. Her dream
is to visit Antarctica so she can say she's been to all seven continents.
