Ivan Penn covers utilities and consumer issues for the Tampa Bay Times. He studied at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he majored in journalism and became the editor of The Diamondback daily student newspaper. He began his professional journalism career in 1992 as a reporter and computer assisted researcher for the Miami Herald. A year later, he returned home to Maryland, where he worked for the Baltimore Sun for 12 1/2 years. While on the John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University, he accepted a position with the St. Petersburg Times, now the Tampa Bay Times. He has won numerous awards, including reporting on the failed nuclear repair and maintenance project at the Crystal River nuclear plant.