Dana Hedgpeth joined the Washington Post in 1999 as a reporter in the Loudoun County bureau. In 2000, she went to the Post’s business desk where she spent 10 years covering a variety of beats, including the hospitality industry, the building of the D.C. convention center, commercial real estate and the redevelopment of the area around the Nationals baseball stadium, and more recently the government contracting and defense industries. Earlier this year, she became part of the Metro staff and spent time as the beat reporter covering the federal courts in Alexandria. She is currently on the Post’s transportation and development team, where she covers the D.C. area’s Metro train and bus system and the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) that runs it.