Getting down to business

~Editor's note: Tim Krakowiak begins today as the business editor of the Southeast Missourian.

From the heart of the Finger Lakes I have plowed through snowstorms to make my way to Cape Girardeau. My journey from the Empire State to the Show Me State was long and challenging. But I am here now.

It seems as though I've brought the cold with me. For that I apologize. Just trying to feel at home in the Midwest.

I come from a relatively small place in upstate New York on Seneca Lake called Geneva to take over the position of business editor at the Southeast Missourian, in the largest city between St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn. Cape Girardeau looks to be quite the discovery. There's a lot happening.

In Geneva, I'd been writing for various publications in affiliation with Cornell University since 2005. Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is world renowned for its scientific studies. To the public I voiced the research of scientists from my cubicle at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, where I shared an office with a former photomicrographer who once took pictures of E. coli and salmonella bacteria just a few feet from my desk.

For the Finger Lakes, the big business news was grapes and wine. With a multibillion-dollar impact on the national economy from the wine, grape juice and grape industries in New York, it was due time to train students to manage the increasing number of vineyards and wineries in the cool climates of the eastern United States. Cornell took that initiative, and between reporting on various grants, awards and programs, I chronicled the economic impact.

Before my work with Cornell, I was an intern at Geneva's daily newspaper, the Finger Lakes Times, after receiving my B.A. in English from the State University of New York at Fredonia two years ago, with a focus in journalism.

I have a sister who lives with her husband in Chesterfield, Mo. I have visited her a number of times since she moved to Missouri in 2003. I quickly grew to love the scenic area, the gas prices, the absence of tollbooths on the interstate, the cheap rent (well, not so much in Chesterfield, but Cape Girardeau), the general easiness of the people and the Missouri sky.

Feel free to introduce yourself and contact me with your business news at tkrakowiak@semissourian.com. Meet me at my blog at semissourian.com. Let's get down to business.

One more thing. The pronunciation of my last name is Krakow (as in the place in Poland), a strong E and an ac: Cracko-we-ac.

Tim Krakowiak is the business editor of the Southeast Missourian. Contact him at 301 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699, tkrakowiak@semissourian.com or (573) 335-6611, extension 137