By Nicole Santa Cruz

Joe Pangburn’s heart was never really with the family construction business. Instead he’s given it to journalism.

“I fell in love with it,” he said. “I’m a very social person. I like hearing people’s stories and I like telling people’s stories.”

Pangburn, 24, is a senior at the University of Arizona and a staff writer at Inside Tucson Business. The weekly business publication has led him to interviews with Arizona business leaders and politicians, including Gov. Janet Napolitano.

Pangburn says business reporting isn’t all numbers and jargon.

“When you really stop and look and think about it all, everything is business,” he said. “You can even cover a sports team and find a business angle.”

After changing his major from construction, the Colorado native took a journalism class at Yavapai Community College in Prescott, Ariz., in 2004. He took every journalism class available and worked for his college paper.

After that year, and after marrying his wife, Kadie, he decided it was time to transfer to the University of Arizona in Tucson.

But before taking a single journalism class at the university, he landed the job with Inside Tucson Business. There, Pangburn edits copy, reports and takes most of his own pictures. He has also organized special projects. But he doesn’t want to stop there. Someday he would like to be an editor for a major news organization.

“I am a freak for grammar and punctuation and editing,” he said.