I grew up in Portland, Oregon – in a small neighborhood beneath the west face of Rocky Butte. I came from a poor family. Early on in my life, I was determined to create my own world of beauty, happiness, and inspiration. I excelled in school – in fact I graduated from the 6th grade and went on to high school early because as my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Lucille Sheets said “we just can’t teach you anything more.”

 

While I was in grade school, I was lucky enough to study Italic calligraphy from a master – Lloyd J. Reynolds, calligrapher laureate of Oregon. I was lucky because only a handful of artistic kids was able to do this. Shortly after, Lloyd died after a long illness. He was truly a great soul who inspired me to find creativity within myself and to always search for it in others. That time with Lloyd was my first exposure to Reed College. Destiny was to have it that I would visit that revered campus once again for another five years, but much later in my life.

 

In my last year at Jason Lee Elementary, I was asked (because I was the resident protege of Lloyd Reynolds) to do banners for the graduation. I remember doing 12 inch high Italic calligraphy on a banner which read “Worlds of Communication” and many others. Those were exciting times indeed.

 

I saw a Model Railroader magazine in Toyland, a local toy store at Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon where I grew up. The detail of the models and the layouts in the photos of that magazine astounded me. In particular, the ads for craftsman kits peaked my excitement in all things miniature. I remember seeing an ad for Ezra Cooper’s Garage by Fine Scale Miniatures and wishing I could build something like that. It was $36 at that time! My parents couldn’t get it for me because it was too expensive at the time. I remember trying to build my own version of it with sticks and cardboard, but I quickly realized this was futile. Since that fateful day years ago, I’ve built a lot of railroad miniatures. Never a layout, though, so far.

 

Just before I entered high school, I started working with computers. I got a job as a programming assistant at the Multnomah School District. My job was to fix a Basic program on a mainframe that wasn’t working. I was only 12 years old. I ended up fixing it! My supervisor knew a friend who was starting a business franchise in downtown Portland and was looking for salespeople. It was a ComputerLand store and his name was Martin Dodge.

 

My first interview with Martin went well and he hired me as a full time sales person. I stayed with ComputerLand for the next 5 years. It was an exciting time. I grew up with computers. When I was at ComputerLand I saw the birth of the Apple IIe, the Apple III, the Macintosh, the IBM PC, then the IBM PC XT, the infamous PCjr, the PC AT, and so many more that have entered the annals of computer history. I witnessed the birth of Microsoft with it’s DOS operating system version 1.0 for the IBM PC. Shortly followed by Microsoft Word for DOS. Later Windows, and well you probably know the rest.

 

While I was in Madison high school I had an English teacher named Henry Bannister. I did book reports for him, but not your ordinary ones. Mine combined artwork with the report. It was my first attempt to integrate my passion for art into my studies. It was a success. Bannister loved it and had one of my book reports featured in the local newspaper.

 

He ran an after school film society called the Madison Film Society. He rented all sorts of movies to show and then analyze and discuss after it was over. He gave me the idea to create movie posters in advance of the film date. I remember creating one such poster for the film Cassandra Crossing. It was about 3 feet wide by 4 feet high. I drew a big mountain with a train tressel that was crumbling (just like the movie of course) and a train that was about to fall into the valley below. All this with the faces of the actors and the titles and credits at the bottom. It took me days and a lot of art supplies including my first exposure to airbrushing. Bannister considered it my greatest work and promptly glued it to the wall next to the cafeteria proudly advertising the film. I got it done only one day before the film was shown, but many students commented on it and it became part of the history of Madison High.

 

In my last year at Madison I was fortunate enough to go to Reed College as a “Young Scholar” and study what was then my second passion – Physics. I started in the summer of 1981 in an elementary particles class taught by a new professor, David Griffiths. Well I loved it! I got A’s. So, Griffiths became my advisor and I got enough scholarships to make it all the way through the next four years at Reed. While there, I had a passion for Humanities along with my Physics. I was convinced that I needed to know more than just science. I needed to know about where all the passion for art and literature came from in my soul. I’m half French, so I needed to trace my artistic legacy. I studied four years of Humanities at Reed. I was in my glory. I got to go to the Portland Art Museum in some of the years and analyze my favorite art – French Impressionism.

 

In my last year at Reed, I tutored first year students in Physics and Calculus because I wanted to help others get into my favorite field – Physics. Because of this, and because of my high achievement in my studies, I received induction into the Phi Beta Kappa society. I remember that sunny afternoon on the lawn in front of Elliot Hall sipping Champagne and nibbling strawberries and basking in my glory in front of a handful of my peers who had also been privileged.

 

After I graduated, the money and the scholarships suddenly ran out. I was devastated. I couldn’t afford to go to graduate school. So, I entered the working world once again. This time as a salesperson for Software Etc, a chain of software retail stores that was opening a new location in the Clackamas Town Center in east Portland.

 

I worked up into managing my own store in Washington Square Mall, in Beaverton Oregon. Software Etc. forced me to move up to Bellevue, WA to manage the Bellevue Square store. I did this for a few years. Then the upper management became so terrible and oppressive that I couldn’t bear to work for them any longer. While I was there I learned so much about helping customers with technical problems on the computer and with software. I even did consulting on the side and helped such celebrities as the wife of Ken Easley, of local football fame! All the while, I was studying C++ programming because I knew one day it would pay off. I also became fascinated with computer graphics programs that could render three-dimensional objects on the screen. One such program was Cinema 4D for the Amiga. I thought it was wonderful. I put my resume out there for a technical support position.

 

A man who was starting a small software company in Seattle contacted me and expressed interest. His name was Lee Edlefsen. His company was called TriMetrix. They made a computer graphics program called Axum that was used to make graphs of data and do statistics. I was interviewed by the whole company and they must have liked me because they made me the head of technical support. I had been able to change careers thanks to Lee. I owe him a lot. Lee was a role model to me – he was the father that I never had. A courageous leader with so much compassion and an uncanny vision that enabled us to deliver one of the finest programs ever produced. Those were exciting days.

 

I started to fix some of the problems that customers were reporting and Lee encouraged me to become a software developer. That decision changed my life forever. 15 years later, I’m still fixing bugs. I’ve had the opportunity to create whole new programs and design software that’s used by some of the most important companies in our world. Lee sold his business to Mathsoft, which became Insightful, and later became TIBCO. Shortly later he retired. I miss him greatly. In the 13 years I’ve been with Insightful, now part of TIBCO, I’ve created software that’s used to help find drugs to combat diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s, which affected my late mother. It’s an achievement I’m proud of. It all started because Lee gave me a chance to change my life and he believed in me.

 

During this time at Insightful, and later TIBCO, I learned so much personally. I got a digital camera and learned how to use it. I got a telescope and learned how to take pictures of deep sky objects – a dream I had even when I was a little boy. I invested in software that enabled me to learn how to create digital paintings of landscapes, people, and whole worlds. All along I’ve not forgotten about my miniature worlds. I’ve built a lot of Fine Scale Miniatures kits and still have a lot to build. After building so many of these, I decided to try my hand at creating my own kit.

 

That brings you up to the current time in my creative life. I’m close to releasing my own 3d web gallery that will take you on a 3d tour through exhibits of my photography and artwork. I continue to build miniatures because it is a passion of mine. I’m working on several and pictures of them will be added to my gallery. I’m also designing more of my own new kits and these will shortly be available.

 

I still keep my calligraphy up. I create Weathergrams (an idea of Lloyd Reynolds) that are strips of brown paper bags that have poetry and thoughts about Nature written in Italic calligraphy. These are given to friends to be hung on trees in their gardens to remember friendship by. Recently I got a new Wacom graphics tablet that lets me practice calligraphy on the computer because it supports pen rotation which is important in doing Italic calligraphy.

 

I haven’t finished creating yet. I’ve got a lot more passion to create more in my world. I hope I can inspire you to do the same in yours.