San Antonio paper cuts business news desk staff by 40 percent

The San Antonio Express-News will cut its business news desk staff from 15 staff members down to nine at the end of this week.

Two staff members are taking a buyout from the Hearst paper, while the other four are leaving via the layoff route. Their last day is Friday, March 20.

The staffers who were laid off include deputy business editor Heather Draper and assistant business editor Gary Anderson.Â

Draper became the deputy business editor for the Express-News in early 2006. She moved to Texas from Denver, where she worked as the Denver bureau reporter for Dow Jones Newswires.  She also worked for several years at the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, covering airlines, energy, mining and international trade. Prior to that, Draper was an energy reporter covering Southeast Asia for Dow Jones Newswires in Singapore from 1997 to 2000.

Anderson is a 41-year news veteran looking forward to applying his talents in another field.

Also being laid off are two reporters: Aissatou Sidime, who covers residential real estate reporter, and Adolfo Pesquera, the small business reporter.

Meanwhile, health care reporter Travis Poling and Toyota, manufacturing and telecom reporter Sanford Nowlin both took the paper’s buyout offer.