Email: jake.speicher@patch.com

Phone Number: 610-209-2432

Hometown: (There's no short answer to this) I was born in Los Angeles, went to high school in Reading, college in Oregon and have lived in West Chester since 2009.

Welcome to the Roxborough-Manayunk or Chestnut Hill-Mt. Airy Patch, my name is Jake Speicher and I look forward to working and sharing within this vibrant community.

First, a little bit about me.  I was born in Los Angeles, and I lived there until I was 14.  Then, with a large dose of culture shock, my family and I moved to the Reading area of Pennsylvania. 

It was in high school that I got my first whiff of writing.  It was junior year of high school, and I had always been told I was a decent writer.  But I never knew what to do with that information.  Then one day my English teacher mentioned that he had been a newspaper reporter before he got into teaching.  It hit me like a lightning bolt.  I would be a reporter.

From there I went on to college and the University of Oregon.  It was there that I threw myself head-first into journalism.  I went on to work as a contributor and then the managing editor of "The Oregon Commentator" an on-campus alternative humor and opinon magazine.

After college I returned home and worked a couple of odd-jobs (I was a Zamboni driver for three months) until I got my first professional journalism job at the "Tri County Record" in Morgantown.

It was there that I got my first sense of what community journalism was all about.  It's where I learned how important it is to be in tune with your readers and to really listen to the things they have to say.

And that's what I did for two years.  I launched the West Chester Patch in Dec. 2010.  I watched it grow.  I saw the change happen.

At first, people would always ask "What's Patch?"  Now, I get to hear how much people love the site, or how I can make it better.

In Feb. 2013, I transferred to the Roxborough-Manayunk and Chestnut Hill-Mt. Airy Patches.  It's a new place for me, new surroundings.  It should be fun.