San Ramon Patch's New Editor Says Hi

I just spent the last 10 minutes trying to think of a clever opening line to San Ramon Patch readers and nothing came to me. So, I'll keep it simple.

Hi. My name is Patrick Creaven and I'm the new editor of San Ramon Patch.

This is the second time I've written an introduction to a Patch community. Almost exactly a year ago, as I started my tenure as editor of Clayton Patch. Luckily, this introduction doesn't come with me attempting to be an on-air television reporter.

I'm not one that enjoys talking about myself, but, quickly: I grew up in Benicia, graduated with a degree in journalism from Cal State University, Long Beach in 2007, worked as a sports reporter at the Daily Republic in Fairfield and ran my own soccer commentary website before coming to Patch.

This past year, I reported on and enjoyed the unique small town of Clayton. Now, I look forward to reporting on a much different, but equally unique city.

I've spent most of the last two weeks talking to residents and leaders around San Ramon. There are important issues facing this city — San Ramon's never-ending , new , the debate over what the city should do with its open space and traffic congestion — and my goal is to keep San Ramon Patch the go-to place to for news in the city.

But, what I've learned from being a Patch editor for a year is that one person can only do so much. I can work 60-hour weeks all I want, but the only way for a Patch site to be great is if the community contributes.

This is my site, but it's also yours. You can write comments on stories, post announcements and events, become a blogger, share how your daughter's soccer team did last weekend or just send me an email and let me know what stories I should be focusing on.

Along with being informative and giving people a voice, I want San Ramon Patch to be one more thing — fun. You should enjoy coming to this site every day. My job is to think up creative, interesting ways to cover San Ramon to keep you coming back.

What I'm lucky to have already is a talented team. , and are just a couple of the frequent contributors San Ramon Patch already has in place and I look forward to adding more talented writers and reporters (if you are one, email me).

Personally, I have impossibly big shoes to fill taking over for . But I'll try, and with a little bit of help from you, San Ramon Patch should be just fine.