First, you find a bureau chief. Then – if you’re lucky and work for a media outlet that still has money in the bank – you go beyond the freelance-stringer frontier and give that bureau chief some full-time local assistance.

Such is the case with Ad Age’s San Francisco operation. After installing Cotton Delo as Bay Area bureau chief, the media publication will add, post-Memorial Day weekend, Tim Peterson (pictured), a journalist plucked from competitor Adweek. Via this morning’s announcement:

It’s been a while since Ad Age has had more than one edit staffer in the Bay Area and we think now’s a good time to crank up our coverage there…

Tim’s slow, Spicoli-esque drawl is a giveaway of his Southern California roots, where he grew up in the shadow of LAX. But he works fast: logging 421 bylines at Adweek since he joined 16 months ago. Some of his best stories included a look at Amazon’s ad business, Twitter’s talks with Hollywood and Yahoo’s deliberations over the fate of Right Media.

Before Adweek, Pederson worked as an editor at Direct Marketing News and as an associate editor covering celebrities and athletes for Access magazine. Congrats.

[Photo courtesy Ad Age]