My life and career reads like that old Grateful Dead 'Greatest Hits' album 'What a Long Strange Trip It's Been'. I grew up in a 'baby boom' suburb of Cleveland, Ohio and live pretty close to where I grew up. I like it here since there is always something going n and there are a lot of excellent cultural and sporting events in the area. I get bored to death living in a small town. Also here in the big city not everyone knows your business.

I graduated from Kent State University in June, 1970 five weeks after the shootings there and yes, I was on campus during the incident. If anyone wants my take on that issue, contact me off the borad and I will give it to them. In college I started out as an Air Force ROTC cadet and a member of the Young Republicans, but the war in Vietnam changed my viewpoints poltically. I left the young republicans because I couldn't support Richard Nixon in 1968. My major in college was in biology and in earth science. A special cause for me was the environment and I am proud that one of the major accomplishments I had in college was to start an environmental action group on campus.

I started my career as a high school science teacher. But after getting laid off twice in two years because of budget cuts and local politics, I decided to change careers. There were simply no teaching jobs available in the early 1970s and a glut of qualified teachers. I went to work in the local welfare department where my primary job duties were to determine eligibility for Medicaid and other assistance programs. That job opened my eyes to how the government bureaucracy worked (or didn't work) and to the way those less fortunate live.

After four years and being married with a small child and a large mortgage, I needed to find another job where I could make some real money. So I got a job with a large national insurance company. I was all set to go to law school when the manager said I 'could make as much money as a lawyer and wouldn't have to spenf four years re-educating myself'. It made sense to me so I made the change. Within four years, I was making more money than many lawyers my age. I had become the top sales rep in my office and one of the top reps in the entire company within five years.

However as my insurance career took off, my marriage fell apart. I literally got divorced, promoted and transferred on the same day. I was promoted to a management position and transferred from Sandusky, Ohio to Spartanburg, South Carolina. Needless to say it was quite an adjustment. Shortly after arriving in South Carolina, I was asked to re-orgainze the western North Carolina territory and re-open a new sales office in Asheville, North Carolina.  For more than a year i was managing two field offices in two states.

I transferred again to Lexington, KY because there was a good opportunity there that invloved far less trravelling around. However the culture at that company changed and I ofund it prudent to move on because the companyhad become an ethical cesspool. I took another job as a sales manager with an insurance company headquartered in Lexington. However that company was also engaging in some shenanigans and that job didn't last. That company went belly up five years later in a 'mini Enron' scandal.

After leaving that job in Lexington, there was nothing to hold me there any longer so I returned to Cleveland, Ohio where my most of my family still lived and my daughters were not far. I gradually redirected my insurance career into the field of employee benefits and health insurance. I specialized in flexible benefit plans for small businesses. In that capacity, I also worked a little in retirement plans.

I worked as an independent rep so I had more freedom to choose what I wanted to do and develp more of a life outside business. I also didn't have to clear everything with corporate so I could also teach some insurance courses at local community colleges and write position papers on issues pertaining to employee benefits and health insurance. I also joined Toastmasters International where I advanced to the designation of 'Able Toastmaster - Silver' (now called Advanced Toastaster - Gold) and held many offices in that organization. I was part of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association's Speakers Bureau and was one of the 'official spokespeople for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame' prior to its opening in 1995.

I have always been attracted to the water and boats, so sailing has become one of my passions. I am fortunate to have Lake Erie on my doorstep for sailing. In addition, I have always loved the music of Jimmy Buffett and I have been a dedicated parrothead for a long time. I have been to many Jimmy Buffett concerts and am currently a member of the North Coast Parrothead Club. My quote 'I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead' is from one of my favorite Buffett songs, 'Growing Older But not Up". I guess that describes me. I'm growing older (I just turned 60 in September), but not up.

I have always had a strong spirit of adventure. In high school, I was a member of the Explorer scouts and spent a week at the Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimmaron, NM where I spent a week backpacking in the Rocky Mountains and got to ride in a rodeo. I just re-visited Philmont this past August after 43 years and it is pretty much the same as it was when I went there in 1965. I can also say that I had the opportunity in the Explorer scouts to spend a week living as a Marine recruit at the Cherry Point Marine Air Station and spending a week at the Pensacola (FL) Naval Air Station where I actually got to spend time on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Mexico observing flight operations.

I have also visited volcanoes in Hawaii and got to walk on day old lava, lie on a sun drenched beach in Jamaica, hike through the Smoky Mountains, and even go ice boating on Sandusky Bay here in Ohio. I got into photography way back in 1971 when I was a teacher. My first foray into photography was to document the effects of strip mining for coal in eastern Ohio. I had worked with a professor who was documenting the environmental destruction there and the effects on the people in the region. That professor had written Ohio's tough strip mine reclaimation law that was passed in 1972 and is still on the books. BTW, I still have those first pictures. Since then I have taken my camera everywhere - from the coast of Maine to the volcanoes and beaches of Hawaii, from Mt. St. Helens in Washington state to the beaches of Jamaica and of course everywhere around here.

So like the Grateful Dead's album, my life has been a 'long strange trip' that is still going strong. Like another Jimmy Buffett song goes 'Where this all ends, I can't fathom my friends. If I knew I might toss out an anchor. I'll cruise along a singing my song, not a lawyer, a thief or a banker.' (from 'Son of a son of a sailor' by Jimmy Buffett).