By now, you’ve hopefully read Dave’s farewell column. If you haven’t, I highly suggest you do so. ... Done? OK, let’s get down to business.

I’m going to go ahead and assume you recognize my byline. Over the last nine years, I’ve been a regular presence around these parts, pretty much sharing managerial duties with Dave. I won’t bore you with all the details of how I came to be in this position, but I will say that I owe a massive debt of gratitude to Dave for giving me a chance. When I first reached out to him, I had limited experience covering professional soccer and had only even been following the Sounders for about six months (this was early 2010, and I moved to Seattle in the summer of 2009). That he was willing to trust me and rather quickly was willing to welcome me into the management of the site was a remarkable leap of faith considering this was very much his baby.

I like to think that I’ve added a lot to the site since I joined — I’m going to go ahead and call us the biggest and best MLS fan site on this here Internet — but there’s no way I’d be where I am today without Dave taking that chance.

But this isn’t about rehashing things that happened since 2010. Let’s talk about how things might change going forward. In short, my hope is that readers won’t notice much different. The people who have made Sounder at Heart what it is are mostly still here (we’re planning a re-introduction of everyone later) and while Dave’s departure is certainly the most significant in the site’s history, change has been almost constant. In other words, I don’t have any plans for big public-facing changes because I think the site is in great shape and not in need of any dramatic alterations.

There will be some changes, however:

Miki Turner (@turneresq) will be taking over our beat writer duties. You hopefully already know him from his work covering the Sounders on Twitter and his own blog, or writing about legal matters on The Athletic. If you don’t, give him a follow!

Beth Mantle will now be running our social media accounts. She has previously written for us under the byline queenofcascadia. You may also know her as the originator of “Jorstian Mordan” and being generally awesome.

Mark Kastner, who has mostly been responsible for running our social media for the past year or so, is moving into a deputy editor role. He’ll probably be doing a bit more writing, but will mostly be doing stuff behind the scenes.

Steve Voght, who has been doing some Reign FC coverage, will also assume some deputy editor roles. His work will focus mostly on running Ride of the Valkyries as Susie Rantz is stepping down from formally doing that work.

Otherwise, things should be operating just as you’re used to.

If you’ve got changes you’d like to see, please feel free to let us know.