Richard Wiens has been helping to run newsrooms big and small for more than 30 years, and was most recently editor and publisher of the Del Norte Triplicate, a newspaper in the far-northern California town of Crescent City, also known as the tsunami magnet of the West Coast.

There, he coordinated coverage that won numerous statewide awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association, including first place for spot news coverage of a tsunami — spawned by the Japanese earthquake of March 2011 — that destroyed Crescent City Harbor.

Prior to that, he helped run the city desks of the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Spokane (Washington) Spokesman-Review and the Los Angeles Daily News. After graduating from the University of Oregon School of Journalism in 1979, he got his start in newspapering at the Hillsboro (Oregon) Argus, where he advanced from reporter to managing editor during his seven-year tenure.

Shedding the bonds of print journalism to become news editor of Honolulu Civil Beat is the latest challenge of Richard’s career. Others have included directing coverage of the numerous military institutions in Colorado Springs, and of a controversial downtown Spokane shopping mall developed partly with public money by the owner of the newspaper he worked for.

He has won statewide first-place awards for feature writing and military coverage, and helped direct coverage of the standoff between white supremacist Randy Weaver and federal agents at Ruby Ridge in North Idaho that was the Pulitzer runner-up for spot news in 1992.

Throughout his career, he has pushed for coverage that helps citizens better understand — and hopefully improve — the community they live in.

Contact Richard at rwiens@civilbeat.org or follow him on Twitter at @WiensCivilBeat.