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Carolina Forge Company
I have been employed as a CNC machinist for Carolina Forge in Wilson, NC since October of 2010. We worked 7 days a week until earlier this year when we went to a 6 day week. I have been running EMag milling machines with Siemans controls and Chiron drilling machines with Fanuc controls. I have been making spindles for the automotive industry. With all the hours we are working, it is a sure sign that the car market is picking up!

Protag
I will say as little as possible about this job as I can simply because I think the experience has taught me a lot about running a production facility and about human nature. I worked nights for several weeks before I started with the company, learning the foil stamping business as quickly as possible so that I would be able to fulfill my role as General Manager as soon as I was able. The job required a lot of time on my part with long days and long weeks. Personnel was an ongoing issue as the business is seasonal and the pay is low. I also had to train employees, schedule production, maintain inventory, shipping, help the graphics department, etc. I was responsible for maintenance of the facility and the equipment as well. If you have specific questions, I will be glad to answer them.

Educational Record Center, Inc.
This was a great place to work and if you would like to contact my former bosses, Jim and Bess Long, I can furnish phone numbers.
ind I started with them back in 1993 as Creative Director. Previously to my employment they had worked with independent contractors but since moving to Wilmington, NC from Atlanta, GA they decided it was in their best interests to do their work in-house.
indThey had a computer system but it wasn't set-up yet and the new catalog was needed in a hurry. I ended up living at the La Quita in Atlanta for a period of time once we got the layouts ready in order to coordinate the project with their prepress house and film people.
ind After that experience, we decided that we needed to do that in-house as well so I called an old friend in the printing business and made a deal to use his equipment to output film. I would take my harddrive to Cary, NC and they would lock me in for the night while I ran off our film. They would then create our proofs for the project and we would ship the film and proofs to the printer. That worked pretty good but involved a lot of long hours and sleepless nights for me.
indWe converted to using PDFs and direct-to-plate processing with our printer in Maine which meant that we did everything in-house from shooting the pictures (or scanning products), layout, design, and PDF files for the printer. This resulted in considerable money saving (film and proofs are very expensive) and cut the time as well. Once we started to FTP the files to the printer the catalog became less of a time crunch which was good as we had added an ecommerce website which needed a lot of my time to create content (graphics, photos, copy, maintenance, etc.)

Wildwood Press, Inc.
The Pointing Dog Journal
I had the opportunity to work with a legend in the publishing business and jumped at it. Dave Meisner was the original founder of Gun Dog magazine. When he sold the magazine he dabbled in real estate for a while but really missed the industry. When his non-compete clause expired he decided to create a new kind of hunting dog magazine - something a bit more specific - and The Pointing Dog Journal was born. He started looking around for people to help in his vision and was given my name from my friends at Sporting Classics magazine. We talked on the phone several times and he decided I was the man for the job. I packed up my worldly possessions and moved north to a picturesque town called Manitowoc, WI. Dave and I, as well as the new editor, worked for months getting all the pieces in place to introduce the premier issue in December of 1992.
indI had spend months in the cold and snow and suddenly remembered why I had left Wisconsin in the first place so after we had a few issues under our belts, Dave and I discussed my leaving. I felt that the magazine would be better served to through a shared art staff with another magazine being published by our friend Steve Smith in Michigan (he did a bi-monthly magazine as well so his people had the downtime to handle the project in-between their current deadlines). Dave told me if I could find a job on my upcoming vacation trip to North Carolina, he would pay to move me back. On the Wednesday before I was to leave I received a call from Jim Long in Wilmington asking me if we could meet and discuss his opening for a creative director (another former employer had given him my name). Just like that, I had an interview for another job and didn't even have to go looking.
indDave and I stayed in touch with monthly phone calls. One day the calls stopped and I discovered later about Dave's untimely death due to a heart attack. He was a good boss and a great friend!

More to come...

This is a shot of products that I created for my woodworking business. Baconwood Box Company started out as a good way to advertise my skills. The name came from a carved, laminated art piece I created that was a take-off on the sword in the stone idea. I had a carved egg with a strip of bacon (that doubled as a letter opener) that I kept on my desk. The products were whimsical but showed potential customers what could be done and the site offered them the opportunity to design and develop their own signature products.