John Fredericks Publisher

John Fredericks, a Roswell, GA resident for 20 years, is the founder and Chairman of Beacon Media Companies, Publisher of The Beacon and Beaconcast.com.

A 1980 graduate of Fairleigh-Dickinson University, where he majored in economics and political science, Fredericks has been a senior media publishing executive for more than 25 years and has served some of the largest newspaper companies in the United States.

As Chairman of Beacon Media Companies, the complete news and information source of North Fulton County, Fredericks is dually committed to serving both readers and advertisers in an enlightened way.

“As a paid subscription based publication invited into your home, we respect our community, our families and our readers. We strive to behave with honor, valor and distinction as we continue to earn your trust and your time. Our goal is to provide you with hyper local coverage of pertinent news and events that effect your life. Our content is deep, rich, relevant and insightful. We analyze news where appropriate and pursue investigative reporting where warranted. We are not a 'shopper.' We are fiercely independent. We don't play 'footsie' with local governments nor do we sugar coat the truth.

We are dedicated to fair and balanced reporting. Editorially, we often take an unabashed politically conservative view point. Most important, we keep our opinions where they belong- on the opinion pages. We have an indisputable reputation of asking the hard questions and tackling the toughest issues that no one else chooses to cover. We work to serve every reader with valuable and lively content that provides a return on their investment of time with The Beacon, whether it be in print, online, or broadcast. Our core promise to our readers is simply this: we will never sell out. Not to special interests, not to business, not to the developers, not to politicians and not to political agendas."

“In regards to our advertising community, we believe the market is changing at a rapid pace, and media leadership must gain alignment," says Fredericks. "We advocate and embrace a dramatic new selling proposition for our valued advertisers. Our distinguishing characteristic is that we guarantee a return on investment on each sales solution that we bring to our customers. We challenge traditional internally-focused and myopic advertising sales venues to provide all advertisers with a guaranteed ROI and an explicit expectation of performance and results as we seek to drive a paradigm shift from product-and-presentation focus to customer-centered pertinence and solution relevance."

John can be reached via email at jfredericks@beaconcast.com

Tim Altork Senior Editor

Tim Altork got started in the newspaper business as a sportswriter covering high school sports in Roanoke, Alabama, for the Randolph Leader. He also was a sports columnist for Atlanta’s Sunday Paper before coming to the Beacon. He was born and raised in Albany, Georgia, and played baseball at Darton College for two years before earning a BA in political science from Valdosta State University in 1999.  Tim lives in Woodstock with his wife Heather and three young children. Tim can be reached via email at taltork@beaconcast.com

Dayton P. Strickland Photojournalist

Dayton P. Strickland is an award winning photojournalist with more than 20 awards to his credit. He comes to Beacon Media after a five year stint with The Daily Tribune News in Cartersville, Ga. He has worked as a photojournalist for the Thomasville (Ga.) Times-Enterprise and the Lancaster (Ohio) Eagle-Gazette. Dayton came to photojournalism after a 25 year U.S. Air Force career where we was a public affairs superintendent. He is married to Anita Ratke of Mainz-Kosteim, Germany, has one daughter, Monika, and two granddaughters, Jessica and Megan. Dayton can be reached via email at dstrickland@beaconcast.com

Karen Matthews Classified Manager

Karen Matthews has 13 years of customer service experience as a ticket agent with United Express Airlines and 14 years of experience as a corporate sales consultant with  Conference and Travel Services in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  A native of Indiana, Karen attended Indiana University in Fort Wayne and moved to Roswell in 2007. Karen can be reached via email at kmatthews@beaconcast.com

Jon Copsey Local Reporter

Jon Copsey was born in Buffalo, NY and spent most of his early childhood moving from place to place. Before too long, he ended up at Purdue University where he majored in History and minored in English. After Purdue, Jon went over to England to study for a Master's Degree in Classical History at the University of Reading. After graduating, Jon moved back to the States to figure out what to do next. Now in Roswell, Jon is still figuring things out. In his free time, he enjoys media of all sorts, especially books, movies, and music. Jon can be reached via email at jcopsey@beaconcast.com

John Breech   Sports Writer

John Breech has spent the last two years of his life trying to come up with synonyms for the word "disappointing" as he wrote weekly about the Cincinnati Bengals on Growlzone.com. He began his college career in the fall of 2000 as a football player at Hanover College (Ind.). He finally finished his college career, an unexpected shock to family and friends, in Dec. 2005 with a B.A. in English Journalism from Miami of Ohio. While at Miami, John was a student assistant for a football team that made consecutive bowl trips for the first time in 30 years. He also co-founded the university's favorite publication, Miami Quarterly (Mq). John now resides in the North Fulton area. In his spare time, he likes to discuss the fortune of Bulldog football with UGA fans. John can be reached via email at jbreech@beaconcast.com