My Story

The results from the Strong-Campbell Invest Inventory were clear.  My greatest opportunity for a successful career was to be an office manager, pastor, or social worker/therapist.  Of course, I forged ahead and graduated with a degree in Metallurgical Engineering from Purdue University.  Graduating in 1970 was tough because The Vietnam War was raging,Government spending was out of control, driving rampant inflation, the car, steel, and housing industries were slow, and the military lottery system had just kicked in.  My lottery number was 261 and my number wasn't likely to be called, but some of my friends received their notifications within a few weeks. They skipped their job offers and enlisted.

With total disregard for my career testing, I completed my degree in June of 1970 and got a job as a metallurgist at the local Alcoa plant.  That job evaporated in six weeks, and I was standing in the unemployment line, acquiring that experience of being last in and first out (LIFO).  I took another job only to be laid off in 3 months when I discovered that the only reason I was hired was for this small company to resign its major contract with GE.  As soon as it was signed, I was surplus and standing in the unemployment line again.  I finally caught a break and joined a gear manufacturing firm.  The job lasted until eight years later when I discovered that I was never going to become successful as a metallurgist because the work wasn't interesting to me. The metallurgists I worked with stood around talking metallurgy and getting woodies, and I just didn’t care! But somehow, I was always involved in resolving people issues on the manufacturing floor.  I returned to graduate school to earn a Human Resources and Labor Relations Management degree.  Work was far more inviting to me and much closer to the Interest Inventory results fourteen years earlier. 

I went to work for one of those bad-ass oil companies and moved around the country, managing human resource issues, recruiting, training, safety, and unionization avoidance.  About eight years later, I realized that I didn't like this work either.  Most of the HR People were weasels, and most of the senior managers were driving up their bonuses on the backs of lower-level employees. They claimed that they wanted integrity, fairness, and equality, but they didn’t really. In one of my job rotations, I discovered that I excelled at leader and employee development.  So, at age forty (when life begins), I quit my job, started my own consulting firm, and learned the three fundamentals of self-employment: 1) The good news is there ain't nobody tellin' you what to do!  2) The bad news is there ain't nobody tellin' you what to do! And, 3) You learn more that you ever expected cause you are doing all the work yourself: marketing, sales, accounting, material design, calendaring . . .  Well, you get the picture - you're doing it all!

At last I was honestly happy with my career, loving the work, and getting up every day with opportunities to make a difference in the work world.   The consulting and development work lasted another twenty-five years and was a blast!  Then the world changed.  We'd all been talking about becoming a global economy and then became one.  Competition became fierce.  Wall Street and stockholders demanded a quarterly good news story of rising profits.  Management thinned out until only the younger, lower-paid, and least experienced people were left.  Top execs became mean!  Development programs were stopped and consultants thrown out on their ears!  Morale took a nosedive!  And the big bonuses continued to be given to the execs but the payments came out of the employee's hides!  The leader and employee development era was over.

I thought I'd retire and start an online coaching and development business aimed at the few leaders who still wanted to be highly effective, even if their bosses didn't care.  Online learning was booming.  I partnered with a superior consultant and close friend and together we built one of the best development sites for leaders who have a high GSQ (Give a Shit Quotient).  After fours years of developing, testing , and marketing, our market testing told us that our product was unique, quality was high, focus was spot on, and site navigation was easy.  Hey - that was good news.  Our market testing also told us that even thought our targeted market highly valued development, they didn't have time to do it.  We could have made the business work with half a million dollars for advertising but neither of us was willing to bet our houses and retirement funds.  I now had to deal with retiring.

During my consulting days, I wrote a book about leadership: Achieving High Performance Leadership Without Being a Dictator, Ogre, or Jerk.  Originally the title said "or SOB" but the youngers didn't know that SOB was an acronym that didn't mean crying.  So, SOB was replaced with Jerk and I learned more about writing.

During my early retirement days, I was bored out of my mind and found that hanging out with the Postmaster in our little town was quite entertaining.  He's bright, quick, well-humored, kind, a man's man, a great listener, and a phenomenal servant to the people of this little town.  Watching him interact with daily customers and their idiosyncrasies gave me another book idea.  A fictional set of stories about a little town in eastern Wisconsin became my second book:    Village Secrets - A Dozen Stories About Villagers, Trysts, UFOs, Shady Economics, Counterfeiting, and Broken Dreams in Quiet Opine, Wisconsin.  After having some fun with the Postmaster, I wrote a third book:  Palindromes, Paraprosdokians, and Posters - Fun for People Who Almost Qualify for Mensa.  This book was created from posters that were hung on the Post Office bulletin board as taunts to the Bulletin Board Czars, who gleaned the boards daily to "protect citizens" from unruly postings.

I continue to write to maintain my sanity and mostly keep me off the streets.  My current work is a history book capturing life in Walkers Mill, PA. The following history books are available: The Forgotten Mines and Coal Towns of Thoms Run and Forgotten People of Collier Township, and Remembering Rennerdale. The Stage and Beyond, a coaching book, was printed in June 2023. Isn’t It Ironic - More Fun for People Who Almost Qualify for Mensa was published in December 2023. The second edition of Village Secrets will be published in March 2024 with updates and full color.

Oh yeah - I like Jeeps and especially the classic grill of my 1973 CJ-7 shown below.