The Denver Business Journal has hired Justyna Tomtas as its local government, land use and suburban development reporter.
Her coverage will also touch on housing and civic issues that affect businesses across the Denver-metro area.
Tomtas started her role at the DBJ on June 20 and has already reported on the reopening of the 16th Street Mall’s first rebuilt block, a metro-area business attracting investment for expansion from star athlete Shaun White and other notable investors, and a new AI summit being organized by the city of Denver.
“Justyna’s ambition to cover issues that matter and her experience making connections with sources will serve the Denver Business Journal well as she reports about the communities where our readers live and do business,” said Managing Editor Greg Avery. “We’re excited to welcome a journalist of her caliber to our newsroom.”
Tomtas grew up in Loveland. She brings over 12 years of experience as a reporter and then editor at publications in Washington, Idaho and Montana, where she oversaw journalists and covered universities, local governments and other institutions.
“I’m thrilled to join the talented team of reporters here at the Denver Business Journal,” Tomtas said. “I’m looking forward to continuing the longstanding tradition of providing our readers with important city and metro-area development news, as well as focusing on land use issues.”
Tomtas freelanced after moving back to Colorado and to Denver in 2023.
Prior to that, she was the regional editor of CT Publishing in Southwest Washington, overseeing the staff and production of The Reflector in Battle Ground, and the Nisqually Valley News in Yelm, both in Washington. She also assisted with editorial functions at The Chronicle, in Centralia, Washington.
Tomtas previously spent time as the education reporter at the Lewiston Morning Tribune, in Lewiston, Idaho; as the senior reporter at The Chronicle in Centralia; and was a reporter and then an editor at the Clark Fork Valley Press in Plains, Montana, and the Mineral Independent in Superior, Montana.
She has a bachelor’s degree in technical journalism from Colorado State University.
Her reporting has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and state newspaper associations in Washington, Idaho and Montana, and from the C.B. Blethen Memorial Awards covering newspapers in the Northwest.
The Denver Business Journal has also welcomed aboard a summer reporting intern, Ariel Smith, who is participating in the Dow Jones News Fund internship program. Smith is a recent graduate of the University of Nevada Reno, where she won honors as the Reynolds Outstanding Student in Business Journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism.
Ariel Smith poses for a portrait in downtown Denver on June 12, 2024.
Her work this summer will include covering minority-owned businesses and helping provide coverage of technology and startup businesses. Some that work is already on display in stories touching on AI used by a local startup and a June 28 print edition cover story about efforts to reopen an iconic Five Points eatery.
