About the Editors

Karl Brauer | Warren Clarke | John DiPietro | Joanne Helperin | Bryn MacKinnon | Brian Moody | Phil Reed | James Riswick
Brent Romans | Josh Sadlier | Paul Seredynski | Mark Takahashi | Production Team | Testing Team

Karl Brauer, Editor in Chief

Karl BrauerI grew up in Golden, Colorado, watching my older brothers add more and more automotive detritus to the curbside surrounding our home. This inevitably led me to a life of automotive enthusiasm that officially began when I purchased a 1968 Dodge Charger R/T at the ripe old age of 15.

A 1969 Plymouth GTX, a 1957 Mercury Montclair and a 1970 Plymouth GTX followed the Charger, all before I had graduated from high school. From there it was simply a matter of earning a journalism degree at CU Boulder and convincing the powers that be at Petersen Publishing (now Primedia) to pay me (sort of) to write about cars.

Before joining Edmunds.com in 1998, I spent four years scribing for a variety of automotive titles, including Hot Rod, Circle Track, Rod & Custom and Super Street magazines. With the escalating performance of mainstream new models, and the realization that automotive enthusiasts make up approximately 10 percent of the car-buying public, my interest has expanded beyond horsepower and speed to embrace all modern automotive offerings — and how they address real-world consumers.

I still own and drive the odd performance car, but I also welcome the arrival of fully functional family haulers and 50-mpg economy cars in our test fleet.

My personal stable includes a 2005 Ford GT, a 1970 Plymouth GTX, a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T and too many old British motorcycles that require too much effort to keep running. A 1990 Honda RC30 provides occasional respite from the Lucas electronics.

Contact me, read my blog, Karl on Cars or view my CarSpace page.

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Warren Clarke, Automotive Content Editor

Warren ClarkeMany have cool cupholders and some of them fly like hurricane winds. What's not to love about cars? With a background in music journalism, I never thought I'd end up writing about them, but the opportunity presented itself, and I pounced. So here I am. I must have saved a busload of straight-A schoolchildren from certain death or something in another life to have been graced with such good fortune.

My automotive tastes are pretty diverse. I have a long-standing love affair with the industry's luxury models. Bentley, step on up, and bring your buddies Audi and BMW with you. But the practical part of me (and that's a pretty big part) also adores the more humble models that heroically manage to give you lots of bang for your automotive peso. Economy cars that get it right, like the Kia Rondo and the Volkswagen Rabbit, will always hold a special place in my heart.

In my role as automotive content editor, I'm responsible for generating and managing our site's top 10 lists, which are published on a weekly basis. I also manage the avalanche of e-mail that gets sent to the editorial department each day.

My current car is an infinitely reliable '97 Suzuki Sidekick that has never let me down.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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John DiPietro, Automotive Editor

John DiPietroI come from a suburb close to Boston, hence my difficulty with pronouncing the letter "R." As with many of my colleagues, cars have been a source of infinite fascination for me for as long as I can remember. While my childhood friends collected baseball cards and quoted batting averages, I collected car brochures and quoted performance specs of a Corvette. Study times in high school (and sometimes college) were filled with me poring over the buff mags, reading classic car books and drawing front three-quarter views of most anything with four wheels.

My passion for automobiles is far-reaching, ranging from classics such as the Mercedes-Benz 500K and Duesenberg SJ, through the muscle cars of the 1960s, up to the current crop of exotics and super sport sedans. Simply put, I wouldn't kick a 1970 Chevelle SS454 or a 2003 BMW M3 out of my garage for leaking oil.

While writing the weekly road test column for a couple of New England newspapers, I met an Edmunds editor on a Mercedes-Benz press event. After we spent a day driving the then-new CLK Cabrio and talking cars, he exclaimed: "Dude, you should work for us!" So I pursued Edmunds and here I am.

My personal rides are a 1989 Pontiac Trans Am GTA that collects dust and a pair of motorcycles: a 1995 BMW R1100 RS and a 2007 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200L.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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Joanne Helperin, Senior Features Editor

Joanne HelperinHelping our readers make the best buying decisions, save money, improve fuel economy and protect their families on the road: That's what inspired me to work at Edmunds.com.

Before taking this position, I wrote TV news in New York and Philadelphia, covered Internet marketing for Business 2.0 magazine and did stints in editorial, marketing, sales and finance for several media and technology companies, including the Los Angeles Times and NBC.

I've always been insatiably curious, an obsessive researcher and a bargain hunter. So whenever I needed to buy or sell a car, I pored over Internet reviews, pricing and specs. I learned about the tricks, the traps and how to get the best deal. I moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1992 to get an MBA at UCLA, but afterward found myself inexorably drawn back into journalism. Then in 2004, when Edmunds was looking for a writer who could speak to the growing online women's market, I landed the job.

As senior features editor at Edmunds.com, I write, assign and edit articles for the Tips and Advice section, covering the entire gamut of automotive consumer advice. I also oversee the Green Car Guide, Women and Family Car Guide, Car Safety Guide and The Driving Woman blog. I serve proudly on our company's Green Committee and perform myriad other duties.

Since I have kids and carpools, I drive a 2008 Nissan Altima Hybrid, a 2002 Honda Odyssey EX-L or a 2004 Chevrolet Astro Van. It'll be awhile before I can tool around in a convertible or sport sedan.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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Bryn MacKinnon, Senior Editor

Bryn MacKinnonIn 1996, I took an entry-level editorial position in the "muscle car group" at magazine publisher Petersen Publishing. I answered phones and opened mail for magazines such as Car Craft and Chevy High Performance. It was my first real job after college, and I was a total car novice. I'm not exaggerating (though I am cringing from embarrassment) when I say it had never occurred to me that there was a difference between tires and wheels. When the phones weren't ringing, I read the magazines we published, keeping track of the terms and concepts I didn't understand. Then I'd corner the "car guy" editors in the office and make them explain everything on my list. I went from opening reader mail from guys who wanted engine-swap advice for their 1970 Chevelle project to writing my own stories about all-girl car clubs and lowering your Integra at Super Street magazine.

A few years later, I joined the Edmunds.com editorial staff as the managing editor, editing every story and making sure we kept to our publishing schedule. Eventually, I decided to pursue other professional opportunities and took a job as an editor at Citysearch.com. But in early 2008, the automotive world beckoned again, and I was powerless to refuse. So here I am, happy to be back at Edmunds.com, managing our road test efforts. I drive a 2000 Honda Civic coupe, but I'm not ashamed to say (though my co-workers insist I should be) that I still miss my first car, a 1989 Ford Tempo.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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Brian Moody, Road Test Editor

Brian MoodyIt all started with my first car: a shiny red Jaguar XKE pedal car with spoke wheels, working headlights and upholstered seats. Sure, I was 4 at the time, but that one gift from my car-loving dad sent me down an automotive path from which I rarely strayed. My car-loving dad bears even more blame, as it was he who frequently took me to car shows, my first car movie (Herbie the Love Bug) and drag races at Lion's.

My first adult-size car was a 1964 Buick Skylark that I still miss like a long-lost girlfriend (not the clingy one, rather the smart, funny one). Once I got over the Buick (and the girlfriend) I misspent the remainder of my youth buying and rebuilding an Olds Starfire, Studebaker Lark, Fiat Spider and a boxy Chevy Caprice.

Somehow, I managed to Lava-soap my hands clean long enough to earn a degree in radio, television and film from Cal State Long Beach. Upon graduation, I moved back to my hometown of Roseville, California, and spent seven years working in television news at KMAX and KXTV as a broadcast designer. Despite my contributions, both stations are still standing. Still, I quickly grew tired of having to come up with a "snappy graphic" relating to a horribly tragic event and moved on to a weekly automotive call-in radio show. After various freelance gigs with local newspapers and various automotive Web sites, I landed at Edmunds nearly eight years ago. I am currently a senior road test editor and spend most of my time writing, voicing and sometimes doing on-camera work for our various video projects. Check them out here. I also write automotive technology articles for our Car Audio and Electronics section.

Although college is a fading memory, my education continues thanks to my wonderfully tolerant wife who frequently informs me, "Girls don't like that." Turns out I know a little more about cars than "the ladies." Thanks to her, our two small children are turning out relatively normal. We have a son and a daughter and live in Long Beach, California.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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Phil Reed, Senior Consumer Advice Editor

Phill ReedMy earliest connection to cars came in high school auto shop taught by Mr. Dooby. Unlike what I learned in other classes, this stuff made sense. It inspired me to try my hand at tinkering with internal combustion engines, on my first car, a 1960 Mercedes 190. For years, I scanned the classifieds for low-mileage cream puffs with grease under my fingernails. There followed a string of questionable car deals across my home state of Massachusetts involving the sale of operable and inoperable Mercedes, Plymouths and VWs. I once bought a Peugeot for two pounds of Vermont cheddar cheese. I began my writing career as a night police reporter in Chicago and Denver, where I drove around in an old Ford with a police radio bolted under the dash. But eventually, the world of cars called me back. I was hired by a self-described "reformed" car salesman to ghost-write Used Cars — How to Buy One, followed by Lease Cars — How to Get One, both published by Book Express. I'm also the author of a "car noir" fiction series (Bird Dog was nominated for an Edgar Award) and several nonfiction books. And I've tried my hand at selling cars at two West Coast dealerships.

I rarely turn wrenches these days although I do miss that kind of work. Last year I bought my first new car, a 2007 Honda Fit Sport. I hope you will try reading my blog, Strategies for Smart Car Buyers named after a book of the same title.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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James Riswick, Automotive Editor

James RiswickWhen people find out what I do, the same questions tend to be asked. The first is almost always, "How did you land a job like that?" I usually say my great uncle was Ferdinand Porsche. If I feel like really answering, I say that I'd wanted to be an auto writer since high school when I figured it was a logical vocation given my love of cars and alleged writing skill. I went to Pepperdine University, graduated with a degree in journalism and interned at Carguide magazine in my hometown of Toronto. (Yes, I'm proudly Canadian, but moved to the States when I was 12.) I toiled in publication obscurity for two years before getting the chance to work at Edmunds. The second question is, "What exactly do you do there?" Well, I write Edmunds Test Drive road tests and vehicle reviews and contribute to the Long-Term Test blog. I also assist in vehicle testing, video and photo shoots, and whatever else needs to be done. The third query is always, "What's your favorite car you've driven?" I'd say currently the Aston Martin DBS (cost no issue) and the BMW 135i (cost sorta an issue). The final is, "So what do you drive, car guy?" Well, since I'm also a die-hard James Bond guy, I own (but rarely drive) an Atlanta Blue 1998 BMW Z3 I picked up with only 38,000 miles on the clock. And it's a 2.8, so it's technically better than Brosnan's four-banger — no stinger missiles, though.

Contact me or read my blog here.

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Brent Romans, Senior Automotive Editor

Brent RomansI grew up in Denver, Colorado, and I guess you could say that's where my interest in cars got started. As a toddler, I had a red Jaguar XKE pedal car (just like Road Test Editor Brian Moody) that I loved. But my real car enthusiasm came from wanting to be like my dad. He owned cars like a Pontiac Firebird and a Sunbeam Alpine back in the day and showed by example how cars could be more than just basic transportation.

After graduating from the University of Colorado in Boulder with a journalism degree, I moved to Southern California in 1996 to pursue a career in automotive writing. I started as an editorial assistant for 4Wheel & Off-Road magazine and later worked as a technical editor at Super Street magazine covering the then-nascent import car culture.

In 1999, I joined Edmunds.com, thoroughly enjoying the Internet publishing medium and being an advocate for the automotive consumer. But three years later, I quit. There were rumors — I joined a competitor, I became a tomato farmer, I got hit by a blimp — but in fact I went to live abroad for a few years in London. I returned to California and Edmunds in 2005, and I've been a senior automotive editor since.

I've owned a variety of small, sporty cars, such as two Honda CRXs, a Volkswagen GTI, an Eagle Talon, a Nissan 240SX and a Mazda Miata, but my current vehicle is a 2008 Chevrolet Corvette.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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Josh Sadlier, Associate Editor

Josh SadlierIn the course of earning degrees from Amherst College (B.A. in Religion) and Harvard Divinity School (Master of Theological Studies), I generally assumed I would end up being a professor. But I eventually had to admit to myself that I was having way too much procrastinatory fun on the editorial pages of various automotive Web sites. As serendipity would have it, Edmunds.com happened to be hiring right around the time I came to this life-altering realization. The rest, as they say, is history.

I was actually a certifiable car nut long before my brief stint as an aspiring scholar. As a kid, I spent countless hours memorizing horsepower, torque and acceleration numbers, and my first car was one that only the clinically car-crazed could appreciate — a 1985 Nissan 300ZX two-seater, manual transmission (of course), with two baseball bat-sized dents next to the passenger-side taillight, digital dash, T-tops, maroon leather seats held together by duct tape, and a sultry digitized female voice that notified me when I'd left the lights on and such.

Since the Z's premature death by bent valves, I've gone through a '94 Integra LS, a '93 Prelude Si and a '92 Skyline GTS-25 coupe, the latter while I was teaching English in Japan. My current car is possibly the finest bone-stock '95 Integra GSR in the country, having spent the first 12 years and 59,000 miles of its life in the nurturing hands of an older couple. I expect it to be stolen in the not-too-distant future.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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Paul Seredynski, Executive Editor

Paul SeredynskiA New England native, I grew up bloodying my knuckles and attempting to freeze to death while wrenching under assorted Saabs. To kick-start my World Rally career, I honed near-telepathic driving skills by sliding backward off snow-covered roads and crashing dirt bikes. A woeful collection of junkyard-tuned, late-'70s Saab 99 models tortured me through J-school in Syracuse, New York, and this Swedish affliction continued even after I bought my first new car in 1990, an all-wheel-drive Mitsubishi Eclipse.

The Eclipse's uncanny ability to generate speeding tickets coerced me off the street into motorcycle road racing, which led to an editorial stint with Cycle World and as the editor of Sportbike. A long stretch of freelancing followed, punctuated by gigs for the (obviously desperate) Road & Track/Hachette crew, and a couple woeful years of PR as the press officer for Kawasaki's World Superbike Team and with Porsche Cars North America. My last gig before joining the Edmunds team involved lowering the mean I.Q. in Redmond, Washington, with MSN Autos.

I still love to drive (anything), and my personal rides include the hopelessly ugly yet wildly pragmatic Honda Ridgeline, and a nearly neglected 2007 Subaru STI Limited (not the white one). A Suzuki V-Strom and a handful of dirt bikes take up disproportionately little space in the Seredynski garage compared to their ability to generate bliss.

Contact me.

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Mark Takahashi, Associate Editor

Mark TakahashiI'm a Los Angeles native, which means traffic has always been part of my life. Cars and motorcycles have been an obsession for as long as I can remember. Pedal cars, Hot Wheels, video games, you name it — I was/am into it. I begged my parents to let me start driving or riding motorcycles before I could see above the dashboard, so I blame them for a missed opportunity at an F1 or MotoGP career.

Very early in life, I realized that I wanted to work on car magazines, since it was the only reading I was ever interested in. After applying for countless jobs, I finally snuck into the industry as an art director. I worked on Chevy High Performance Magazine, ATV Rider, SuperStreetbike and AUTO Aficionado as an "art guy" who also wanted to write. I soon realized that I really just wanted to drive and write, and luckily I ended up at Edmunds.com.

I've always had a thing for motorcycles, and classic and sports cars. My current cylinder count is 18 — which includes a 2005 Lotus Elise, a 1957 Thunderbird that my grandfather bought new, a 2002 Harley V-Rod and a 1994 Honda CBR600f2.

Contact me or view my CarSpace page.

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Production Team

Donna DeRosa, Managing Editor
Caroline Pardilla, Deputy Managing Editor
Doug Lloyd, Senior Copy Editor

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Testing Team

Dan Edmunds, Director of Vehicle Testing
Jay Kavanagh, Engineering Editor
Chris Walton, Chief Road Test Editor
Josh Jacquot, Senior Road Test Editor
Al Austria, Senior Vehicle Evaluation Engineer
Mike Schmidt, Vehicle Testing Coordinator
Mike Magrath, Vehicle Testing Assistant

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