Julio Ojeda-Zapata ’85
Enrolling at Saint John’s University was truly a leap of faith for Julio Ojeda-Zapata. The native of the San Juan, Puerto Rico area had never set foot on campus before he arrived here as a first-year student in the fall of 1981.
“I hadn’t done any college visits and I went to Saint John’s sight unseen,” said Ojeda-Zapata, a longtime reporter for the St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press who has been covering the changing face of technology since the mid-1990s.
“I got dropped off in the middle of nowhere in a place I’d never been before. But it ended up working out. I loved my time there.”
Ojeda-Zapata majored in political science at SJU, but he already knew journalism would be his true calling – an insight that dated back to when he started writing for La Flama, a student paper at Colegio Espíritu Santo parochial school in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico.
He also wrote for The Record during his time at SJU, then earned his master’s degree in journalism at the University of Illinois. He worked for the Chicago Reporter, a monthly magazine, for a year, before returning to Minnesota to work at the Star Tribune as a summer intern, he then joined the Pioneer Press as a general assignment reporter in 1987.
“Saint John’s had such a solid liberal arts program, which was perfect for me,” he said. “I went on to the University of Illinois to get my master’s and that was preparing for my career. But during my four years at Saint John’s, I was able to sample a little bit of everything which helped me become more well-rounded.”
In the mid-1990s, Ojeda-Zapata transitioned from his general assignment role into covering the technology beat, just in time for the dot.com bubble and eventually the advent of social media. He’s also written a number of books about consumer technology, business tech and mobile productivity.
His 2008 book, Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company, was one of the first written about the emerging social media giant.
He’s currently part of the newsroom’s online team, though he still occasionally writes for the newspaper as well. He is also a contributing editor for TidBITS, a website for Apple enthusiasts. His work has also appeared in a variety of other print and online outlets, including Macworld.com, Mpls.St. Paul Magazine and the San Jose Mercury News.
“Writing for TidBITS has been a true privilege for me,” he said. “I read the site for years and years before I started writing there and I never dreamed my name would one day be on the masthead.”
And Ojeda-Zapata said he still looks back on his time at Saint John’s with great fondness.
“I picked Saint John’s on instinct, but within two days of arriving there, I knew I’d picked the right place,” he said. “I made so many great friends there right off the bat. It’s just a beautiful place to be.
“Even now, when I come back and swim out to the raft (on Lake Sagatagan) and lay in the sun, there’s nowhere else in the world where I feel more relaxed.”
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“I picked Saint John’s on instinct, but within two days of arriving there, I knew I’d picked the right place.”