Jayne O'Donnell

Jayne O'Donnell combines a few of her favorite subjects in her first book: Cars, clothes and the often-confounding qualities that make young people tick.

As the retail reporter for USA TODAY since 2006, Jayne has covered the demise and comeback (and near demise again) of department stores, profiled the colorful founders of Juicy Couture and chronicled the hard life of a toy store manager at Christmas, just to name a few of her standout stories.

In more than 15 years at the country's largest-circulation newspaper, Jayne has covered everything from children's product safety to white collar crime to airlines. From sociopaths in the boardroom to teen drivers in the emergency room, her reporting has opened eyes and saved lives.

Her investigative reporting skills have helped Jayne expose many of the major auto and product safety hazards of the last several years in USA TODAY. These include articles on deadly teen crashes, the dangers of front and side air bags to children and companies failing to report safety defects in children's products to the government.

For the past several years, Jayne has also contributed parenting and automotive articles for women's magazines including Good Housekeeping, Woman's Day and Parents, as well as to the automotive website Edmunds.com.

Jayne is frequently interviewed. She has appeared often on Good Morning America, Fox Business Network and on CBS, CNN and MSNBC programs. She also hosted Live! With Regis & Kelly (and formerly "Kathie Lee") segments during the New York Auto Show for many years.

Jayne has won several public service and journalism awards for her work alerting the public to auto safety hazards. Her reporting on air bags in the late 1990s is widely credited with prompting the government's actions to make them safer, including the new "smart" air bags and the warning labels now in every new vehicle. In August 2005, the Governors Highway Safety Association made Jayne the first journalist to ever win its "Chairman's Award," which was presented for her "dedication to improving highway safety."

Along with keeping a close eye on the retail sector, Jayne stays current on automotive developments. She has evaluated at least one car or truck every week for 20 years. She is a graduate of the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving and the Skip Barber racing school.

Jayne is a graduate of University of Maryland's College of Journalism and did graduate work at George Washington University's School of Business. She lives in McLean, Va. with her husband, Richard Willing, and their 9-year-old daughter Cate.