21 YEARS

Iwas talking with a friend the other day and the topic came up, he was getting ready to attend his 22nd year at PRI and I had to think, this year marked my 21st SEMA Show. Twenty one years in the same industry. When I was a 16-year old kid I dreamed of working on trucks for a living. It was what I did as a past time and I always told myself “if you like what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Told my Dad that too, of course he didn’t think that was the greatest moto to have at the time. I turned wrenches for a decade or so before getting into this media biz. When I put the wrenches down and picked up a keyboard and camera, I was sort of getting away from my original dream of working on trucks for a living. So I made another promise to myself, to never leave the industry. I thought, I can move around within it, to sales, marketing, manufacturing, or who knows, but I’ll never leave the automotive aftermarket. And since then I’ve dabbled in all those things, I’ve worked for PPE and later Dynomite Diesel, sold parts at both a small truck shop and your corner auto parts store, I worked at a Dodge dealership, I helped produce automotive TV shows, created racing events, and of course, this magazine stuff too. It’s been a really rounded career so far and 21 years later I’m still here, loving it.