New Orleans native and Loyola University graduate Rene Sanchez is now the editor and senior vice president of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Sanchez has been the paper’s managing editor since 2008, and led its 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative project on local daycare deaths.

Sanchez credits his time on The Maroon staff during his education at Loyola as one of the reasons for his success in journalism.

He spent 17 years as a reporter for the Washington Post.

The Star Tribune is the nation’s 12th-largest daily newspaper.