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This is the long version, my ‘through line story’, for those wanting a better background. A much shorter version is on my LinkedIn profile.
I’m an eLearning designer, developer, and healtchare report analyst from Ohio, with decades of experience. I grew up in Ohio, and also in Anaheim, California, too — big fan.
In the late 80’s personal PCs were very new. I was living in Charlotte, NC, where I found my love for computers when I got my Apple IIGS.
I enjoyed creating on my Apple, as I made newsletters, event posters, menus, logos, anything for anyone who could use my practice projects. The pins of my color ImageWriter II dot matrix printer sung as they painted my images on printed pages.
That passion led very quickly to my role as the Desktop Publisher for Kinko’s of Charlotte where I did more of the same, using better equipment, and got paid for the work.
My experience continued as we expanded into rental PCs and Macs to support the interests of the small businesses Kinko’s famously catered to. Rental demand was strong, but my users also wanted a hands-on learning experience with the more sophisticated software offerings, without paying the hourly rental fees.
I responded by writing a simple project based seminar I delivered during Saturday classes. I offered a half-price discount on the rentals during the course. I built the rental business up and as a result our rental business increased — we had the highest profit per square foot of desktop publishing space in any North Carolina Kinko’s location. This was my first experience as a trainer.
IBM PCs’ Windows 3.1 desktop was very different from the Mac Finder. To learn PCs in support of my rental customers, I wrote a PC Pocket User Guide I later submitted to a Kinko’s contest. It placed second nationally.
Over the years, I realized while writing end user classes and user guides I was very good at simplifying complex ideas or processes for my understanding. I also found I was very good at explaining these ideas to others.
Continuing the journey, I continued to learn other desktop technologies at Kinko’s. I had a lot of autonomy to explore, as management encouraged an entrepreneurial spirit in this new business of desktop technologies.
As I developed my experience, I saw an opportunity to combine customer need with my interests exploring the new technologies, including database reporting for the store, developing charts for customers, and creating Excel macros. In addition to explaining the new technology, my customers wanted a collaborator, someone who could translate their ideas to these new processes and presentation formats. I learned how to tell their stories. And then I illustrated them in business graphics, presentations, and reports.
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In later roles, I continued as a liaison and collaborator while working with similar desktop technologies as at Kinko’s. Additionally, I expanded my Microsoft Office skillset into VBA-automated Office 365 applications, Tableau, Power Automate Flows, and Power BI.
As a healthcare report analyst, I worked on complicated projects. I am very proud of the Clinical Alarms project, which spanned Cleveland Clinic/Akron General’s 33 hospital units. The goal of this project was to reduce nurse response time to bed alarms, for example heart rate alarms in the cardiac care unit. I wrote an 11-step process using Excel VBA macros that read, cleaned, and updated four-million records across 33 pivot charts. I also wrote the monthly summary to the unit directors.
In the same role, I maintained and improved a weekly Excel based Health System Scorecard and also wrote the weekly summary narratives for Akron General leadership.
I learned and then attained certification in Tableau and created overview dashboards for leadership. My experience as a report analyst, I learned how to use dashboards and automate my presentation narratives, add interactivity and charting, telling stories in terms of trends, patterns, or tables — whatever the end user wanted.
Power Automate is online enabled VBA. In one example for one of the colleges at my university, I wrote a marketing workflow that sent surveys, tracked and reported responses, and also sent completion reminders. I shared with my department the many techniques I learned on this and the next few flow projects. See my portfolio for a detailed write-up of this project.
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I’ve worked in eLearning roles in the public and private sector. Working from home allows me to work on multiple projects and provide ongoing support for any role.
My current role has allowed me to explore online training development, adding spoken word and high quality interaction to my projects. I have found adding these two attributes greatly increases participant attention, skill and knowledge retention.
My career in training, desktop software development, and as reporting analyst has enjoyed a synergy in that what I teach I learn, and what I learn I teach. I found this to be true as I’ve moved among training roles, to development, to analyst. What is common to each role is gathering requirements or gap analysis, a development process, communication skills, and instructing others in the use or understanding of my work product.
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I believe each person has at least one job that ‘set the course’, has a through line, to the roles that followed. For me that place was Kinko’s of Charlotte.
Thank you for allowing me to share my through line story with you. If you want to see how I’ve helped others over the years so you can evaluate how I can help you, please check out my portfolio of selected work for more details in their project context.
I have an A.A.B. in Programming Desktop Computers from Stark State College, a B.A. in Accounting & Financial Management from Hiram College, and a Masters of Science in Teaching & Training Technical Professionals, from The University of Akron.
I live in Ohio, with my wife and our three dogs, Ripley, Tonka, and Ziggi.
We all have them. I want you to know mine and how they guide my actions in what I create and how I work with others.
I help only if it makes sense for both of us.
If I can’t do the work, I’ll say so.
I act with others the way I want to be treated.
I am a lifelong learner.
There’s a time to do things the way we always have and a time to look for new ways.