Kevin Helliker is bureau chief in the Chicago bureau of The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Helliker began his journalism career in 1982 as a reporter in the Houston bureau of the Journal. The following year he joined the Kansas City Times as a reporter, and in 1985, he became assistant editor at Corporate Report Kansas City magazine. In 1986, he moved to Arizona TrendM magazine as a writer and later became managing editor. He left the magazine in 1989 to pursue a yearlong writing fellowship at Duke University.

In August 1990, Mr. Helliker rejoined the Journal as a reporter in Dallas. He moved to New York in November 1992 as a special writer on the paper's page-one desk, and in June 1993, he transferred to the Journal's London bureau. He was named Dallas bureau chief in May 1994 and Chicago bureau chief in May 1996.

A native of Kansas City, Kansas, Mr. Helliker earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Kansas.

Tom Burton is a reporter in The Wall Street Journal's Chicago bureau. He covers the medical care, pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

Mr. Burton joined the Journal in January 1990 as a general assignment reporter based in Chicago. He has covered his current beat since 1991.

During his last year in law school, Mr. Burton was a Washington, DC-based reporter for the Dallas Times Herald before going to work at the paper's main office in Dallas and also spent time in the paper's Dallas bureau. In 1975, he became an investigative and associate counsel with the New York State Assembly's Office of Legislative Oversight and Investigation, based in New York City.

Mr. Burton returned to journalism in 1976 as a reporter with the Baltimore Sun. From 1978 to 1990, he was an investigative reporter first for the Philadelphia Bulletin (1978-1981), and later for the Chicago Sun Times (1981-1985) and the Chicago Tribune (1985-1989).

He won a 1993 Peter Lisagor award in the business journalism category from the Chicago Headline Club for this coverage of Baxter International, and in 1995, he won a Peter Lisagor award for feature writing in the business/wire service category. Along with two other Journal reporters, he won a 1996 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism in the large newspaper category for their stories examining allegations of price-fixing and other illegalities at Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, the world's leading grain processor. The same team also won first place in the special projects category from the National Association of Agricultural Journalists in 1996 for their Archer-Daniels Midland coverage.

Mr. Burton is a member of Investigative Reporters & Editors Inc.

A native of South Bend, Indiana, Mr. Burton earned a bachelor's degree in history from Dartmouth College and a doctor of laws degree from Georgetown University Law Center.