About The Dispatch

The Mountainair Dispatch is an independent publication launched in November 2022 by me, Todd Brogowski. I saw a gap in news coverage for the Torrance County area, and believed a low-cost, hyper-local news service could serve the county better than a traditional newspaper. Many rural and suburban newspapers consider selling their publications to large newspaper conglomerates like USA Today/Gannett. My goal is to create unbiased, detailed, actionable reporting that serves my community.

About Me

I have been a writer for over twenty years, first working for the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, then the New Jersey Lawyer, the World Journal (covering Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico), Task and Purpose (a magazine for veterans and active duty military service members), the Edgewood Independent, and finally the Mountainair Dispatch. I have also published a (long-outdated) reference book for lawyers, The New Jersey Family Law Digest, and worked as a freelance writer for multiple publications.

I also worked in investigations and violence prevention. After 9/11, I joined the military, serving as a Human Intelligence professional trained in interrogations and undercover source operations. I was selected to be the senior interrogator for a joint task force operating in the Middle East under the Joint Special Operations Command. I was also assigned to surveillance and counter-intelligence operations for the Intelligence and National Security Command in the Far East. Amongst other awards and medals, I received the Bronze Star for my work with the military. For those advertisers that need to meet certain contractual quotas, I am a 100% service-connected disabled veteran.

I was a private security professional for a multi-national corporation in the Pacific Northwest. While with this corporation, I was a threat of violence focal, and worked to deescalate crises in order to prevent mass shootings.

I graduated from Georgetown University Law Center with a Juris Doctor degree, and from Boston College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and cognitive science.

I obtained a post-graduate certification in Digital Marketing Management from Cornell University to better serve advertisers. I have also been certified as a Corporate Compliance and Ethics Professional by the Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics and as a Certified Fraud Examiner by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

My wife and I have a no-cull poultry farm in Mountainair, where we raise chickens and turkeys. When I’m not working for the Dispatch, you can usually find me either working on the farm or sharpening and restoring knives, a hobby I developed while writing about outdoor gear for other publications. I also volunteer with the Torrance County Local Emergency Planning Committee, the Torrance County DWI Council, and am a member of Military Veterans in Journalism.

I love photography, jazz, the New York Yankees, and coffee. Someday, I hope to learn documentary filmmaking.