Kim Mikus has served as a business writer with an emphasis on retail trends, consumer issues and small business since the mid-1990s.

As a senior writer, she follows development in the local business industry as well as a wide array of other suburban business issues. Mikus has her own column featuring small business that runs several times a week. The column explores new and unique businesses located in the Daily Herald's suburban footprint. It gives readers information about what the small business community has to offer as well as how and why these ventures get started.

Prior to covering business, Mikus covered crime, school issues and city government for several years. She regularly fills in on the Daily Herald's new dawn patrol reporting mission that involves posting breaking news directly to the website in the early-morning hours.

Mikus also appears regularly on ABC 7 News on Sunday mornings, where her focus is discussing consumer stories that she has written. She has a strong ability to see the latest trends while in their infancy stages, including, for example, the popularity of WebKinz and Silly Banz. The seasoned business journalist enjoys writing about business and the economy as it drives the news in many ways.

It affects the job market, real estate, politics, funding for education and just about everything else in our daily lives.

Mikus graduated from Eastern Illinois University with a journalism major, pursuing an interest in the industry that started at the age of 10 when she delivered a weekly newspaper on her bike in Libertyville, where she grew up. She was later involved in reporting and writing at Libertyville High School. Today, she lives in Lake Zurich with her husband and two children.