New copy editors for Sports, National desks

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A memo from Henry Fuhrmann, assistant managing editor for copy desks:

The copy desk department is pleased to announce three new members of the staff: Jim Coleman, Ken Olsen and Jay Wang. Here is a bit of background about each:

Jim Coleman should be familiar to most of you as a Times veteran who left in July 2007 to become a schoolteacher. Jim has shaken off the chalkboard dust and has been back with us on the Sports copy desk since the start of February. In many ways Jim is coming full circle -- not just by picking up his Times career but also by returning to sports journalism. His long, impressive resume starts with sports reporting and editing in Nevada, including a stint at the Las Vegas Sun. Jim has worked mostly in metro news since, including his 23 years here in L.A., during which he was a stalwart copy editor and slot on the Valley and Metro crews.

Ken Olsen joins the National copy desk from our sister paper, the Sun Sentinel in South Florida, where he had worked since 2002 as assistant news editor and news editor in charge of the night copy desk. Ken spent almost 20 years in Central Europe and Russia as a freelance reporter and editor for various publications and wire services, mainly the Associated Press and Time. In the late 1990s, he was managing editor of the Moscow Times, the Russian capital’s English-language daily. Ken owes much of his European odyssey to his wife, Carol J. Williams, The Times’ legal affairs writer and former bureau chief in Vienna, Moscow, Berlin and the Caribbean. Ken, a native of Seattle, has a bachelor’s degree from Western Washington University; he holds a master’s in journalism from Ohio State University.

Jay Wang has joined the Sports copy desk from USA Today, where he had worked as a copy editor and slot since 2007. He previously worked at ESPN.com in Bristol, Conn., and before that at the Oregonian in Portland. Jay grew up in Ithaca, N.Y., and stayed in town to attend Cornell University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree. Jay describes himself as a big fan of Sports That Nobody Cares About, which he says includes college hockey and college lacrosse. Our hiring of Jay may represent something of a Times recruiting first in that he and I met on Twitter before meeting in person. We do, indeed, expect to tap Jay’s skills in social media and Web work generally after he gets settled on the desk.