T-Squared: Farewell to Kate the Great

I'm terribly sorry to report that Kate Galbraith, who's been a key member of our staff and contributor to our success going all the way back to June 2010, will be leaving us at the end of this week to move to California. It's a big loss for Texas and for the Trib, but we've been lucky as hell to publish her reporting on energy and the environment for three years.

So smart, so fair, so thorough, so dryly witty, so mature and measured in her outlook on the world and her approach to journalism, Kate has been highly respected member of the Capitol press corps, a valued colleague and a great friend. She has demonstrated expertise in many areas of her beat — oil and gas comes to mind — but on water, in particular, she has been a leading provider of reliable, nonpartisan information and thoughtful perspectives from every side of what is surely one of the most important issues of our day. Ditto on wind, going so far as to co-write a book on the subject: The Great Texas Wind Rush: How George Bush, Ann Richards, and a Bunch of Tinkerers Helped the Oil and Gas State Win the Race to Wind Power (University of Texas Press). She has made our audience smarter, and she made all of us around her smarter, too.

In a week or so, we'll announce Kate's replacement. More accurately, replacements. Kate performed the Herculean task of covering both energy and the environment during her time with us, but there's clearly enough reporting to be done and so many wonderful and important stories to tell in separate beats, so we're hiring two different journalists to succeed her. As the saying goes, they'll have enormous shoes to fill.

Bon voyage, pal. It's truly been our pleasure to work with you.