Technically my first job was at McDonald’s, but instead of showing up for my first day I joined friends going to the new Valley Fair amusement park.
After three part-time jobs I got my first and last real full-time job. From that point forward I became self-employed and never looked back.
Courtesy Bus Driver / Parking Attendant
Procrastination can be a wonderful thing. My plan for getting my first job after graduating high school was simple: don’t think about it. Somehow it all worked out anyway.
An opening came up at the Kahler Hotel, where my brother worked. Not only was I a shoe-in for the position, but it turned out to be an ideal job while I was going to school.
Media Production Specialist
Recruited directly out of high school to work in IBM Rochester’s state-of-the-art Media Production Center after being seen directing the daily high school television news program. The Media Production Center was a professional television and film production facility within IBM Field Engineering that produced worldwide technical education and training programs.
Assisted directors in the production of corporate educational videos covering the operation and maintenance of IBM mainframe computers. Also assisted video engineers with the maintenance of Chyron graphics systems, Ampex videotape recorders, Ikegami cameras, video switchers, audio mixers, and related studio equipment.
Click here to learn about big blue.
Chyron Electronic Graphics
After settling into Brown Institute and life in the Twin Cities, it was time to find a job. Before looking through the school’s placement listings, I decided to stop by the legendary KSTP television station just to see what it took to get hired. They happened to be looking for a Chyron operator for their live weekend newscasts. KSTP had just purchased a state-of-the-art Chyron IV graphics generator—the same system I had been using at IBM Rochester. After the interview, I started work the very next day.
My responsibility was creating all of the electronic graphics used during the live broadcasts. This was long before modern computer graphics systems. As the Chyron operator, I created and aired every lower-third name, location caption, weather graphic, election result, and full-screen graphic seen by viewers. Working in the control room alongside the director and technical director, I triggered each graphic at precisely the right moment, often with only seconds’ notice as the newscast evolved.
At the time, KSTP wasn’t just the dominant station in the Twin Cities. It was one of the highest-rated local television stations in the country, with an astonishing 42% market share—roughly 820,000 viewers tuning in to a typical newscast.
My responsibility was creating all of the electronic graphics used during the live broadcasts. This was long before computerized newsroom systems. Every news script was typed on ten-part carbon paper using large-print newsroom typewriters. Each reporter prepared a script with the anchor’s copy on the right side and production instructions on the left. Stories were continually revised until airtime, with placeholder pages inserted for stories that were still developing.
About 45 minutes before each newscast, the floor director would number the script pages, separate the carbon copies into ten stacks, and distribute them around a large conference table. Copies went to the anchors, producer, director, technical director, teleprompter operator, audio engineer, video engineer, sports, and me.
I would grab the pages for the first segment, race upstairs to prepare the graphics, then return for the remaining segments. Some broadcasts required only a handful of simple lower-third titles. Others required dozens of complex full-screen graphics, all of which had to be created before airtime. During those same 45 minutes, the directors and I also assembled the graphics for the pre-produced news packages.
Weekday evenings were even more challenging. While operating live weather graphics for the 5:00 p.m. newscast, the scripts for the 6:00 p.m. broadcast began arriving. Someone would shuttle pages upstairs so I could work on both broadcasts simultaneously. Placeholder pages were continually replaced as reporters finished their stories, often requiring graphics to be created only moments before they aired.
Breaking news made the process even more dynamic. Producers constantly distributed revised pages: “Here’s a new page 4,” or “Page 6 is now pages 12A, 12B, and 12C.” Stories were moved, expanded, shortened, or dropped entirely as events unfolded.
One thing that always amazed me was how accurately the producers timed a live broadcast. They knew the anchors averaged about 2.1 seconds per typed line, allowing them to calculate each segment almost perfectly by adjusting the number of lines in the script. The final line of a 30-minute newscast would be, “Good night from Eyewitness News. Here is Peter Jennings.” As the last word was spoken, the network feed from New York appeared seamlessly.
Election nights were unlike anything else. During one major election, I was assigned to work overnight—not in the newsroom, but in a small room off the Pepsi plant in Burnsville. Three workstations were set up there, one each for KSTP, WCCO, and KARE. A nearby mainframe computer produced massive line-printer reports of election returns every few minutes, rotating which station received the first copy. My job was to stay on the phone with the newsroom and quickly locate whatever race or precinct they needed by searching through stacks of freshly printed results.
KSTP-TV’s studios and offices are located on University Avenue, precisely on the Minneapolis-St. Paul boundary. The principal broadcast studios are on the Minneapolis side of the building. Most of the rest of the operation is on the St. Paul side. The newsroom resides in both cities. The large tripod transmitting tower behind the station has one leg in each city, with the third leg precisely on the city line. This tower is primarily used to relay the station’s signal to the Telefarm twin tower setup in Shoreview and receives live feeds from remote trucks.
Click here to read more about Hubbard Broadcasting.
Click here to read what can happen when ice accumulates on this tower.
Free Lance Electronic Graphics
TwinStar Productions was a partnership between the Minnesota Twins and the Minnesota North Stars to produce televised games. I was recruited while working at KSTP. The ironic part is that I knew almost nothing about sports. Apparently that wasn’t a deal breaker because they hired a sports intern to help fill in the gaps.
The perks were hard to beat. I had season credentials for games at both the Metrodome and Met Center, along with access to the press room, locker rooms, owner suites, and the catered pregame meals.
The routine for a live hockey broadcast rarely changed. I would arrive at the Met Center in the late afternoon just as the production trailer was being powered up after a long day of pulling literally miles of cable throughout the arena.
I liked getting there early before the rest of the production crew arrived. Working from the advance script, I created lower-third graphics for every player, coach, and announcer. I also built templates for graphics that had to be updated instantly during the game, such as scoreboards, shots on goal, penalties, and other statistics. Before airtime, one of the statisticians dictated player trivia and background information so I would have graphics ready to go whenever someone scored or a player became the focus of the broadcast. Once the game started, the director expected any requested graphic to be on the air within about five seconds.
Those few hours of preparation were critical because everything changed once the producer and director climbed into the truck. It was common to receive a heavily revised script just before airtime, forcing me to update graphics I had already created while my assistant reorganized the production rundown that served as our roadmap for the broadcast. At the same time, the director was recording pregame features that also required graphics on demand.
Dinner was another memorable part of the day. The entire production crew, on-air talent, executive producers, team executives, players, and invited guests gathered around an impressive catered meal before everyone scattered to their positions for the broadcast.
Then it was showtime.
As the countdown reached zero, the production truck shifted instantly into execution mode. We produced a master satellite feed that was distributed to hundreds of affiliates. The broadcast included two languages, two announcing teams, and multiple branded versions, all supported by a single production crew.
One of the more interesting challenges came when the director spoke only French. Live sports requires constant communication between the director and graphics. I eventually learned enough French swear words to know whether I was about to receive good news or bad news. For everything else, I had to wait for an interpreter to relay the instructions through my IFB headset.
I’m honestly surprised I didn’t develop an ulcer from the stress of live sports television. Having almost no knowledge of hockey certainly didn’t make the job any easier, but somehow it all worked.
Below are two scripts from actual broadcasts.
The first is for Spectrum Sports, a local subscription-based broadcast television channel. Starting on page 11 is the “font” listing—industry jargon for the graphics I created.
The second script is for the Canadian Sports Network during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This network produced the legendary Hockey Night in Canada, distributed throughout North America in both French and English.
Notice how much detail is missing from the live sports script. It shows the structure of the broadcast and possible variations, such as going into overtime or running long. The details were filled in during commercial breaks, as updates came in from other games, and as events unfolded on the ice.
That incompatibility is what made the job so stressful. Creating graphics was meticulous work. It required setting colors, positioning fonts, and checking spelling—especially player names. At the same time, I had to bring up graphics on demand for whatever had just happened, avoid the fatal mistake of displaying the wrong score, and process constant instructions coming through my earpiece from the producer, director, statistician, and others.
Life became much easier when I had an assistant who understood both graphics and sports.
The Chyron in the production truck had been stripped down so it would physically fit, which created some odd limitations. If a logo needed to appear next to a person’s name and title, the logo was split into an upper half and lower half. Those two halves had to be aligned manually based on the width of the text beside them.
So when the director shouted, “Colle un logo North Stars dessus!” — “Stick a North Stars logo on that!” — it was no small feat to have it ready in five seconds.
Engineering Technician / Device Engineer
Worked in a state-of-the-art semiconductor research and fabrication facility that developed and manufactured proprietary bipolar integrated circuits for next-generation mainframe computers.
Hired as an Engineering Technician responsible for the physical layout of high-performance bipolar semiconductor devices using Calma computer-aided design (CAD) systems. After two years, and with the direct recommendation of an Executive Vice President, successfully completed a rigorous peer review and was credentialed as a Semiconductor Device Engineer based entirely on self-taught knowledge and demonstrated engineering competence.
Following the merger of Sperry Corporation and Burroughs Corporation to form Unisys, the Eagan semiconductor facility was slated for closure. Selected as one of only 35 engineers to receive a retention incentive to remain as a critical technical resource throughout the 18-month shutdown and technology transfer.
New Product Architect
In 1995, Fourth Shift Corporation assembled a 50-person “Skunk Works” team to design and build a next-generation Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system from the ground up. I was selected by the company’s president as one of four software architects responsible for rethinking the fundamental design of the system rather than simply improving the existing product.
The project employed a methodology known as Solution-Based Modeling, the same design philosophy used in the development of the original Apple Macintosh. Our team was trained and mentored by Neal Goldstein, co-creator of the Macintosh operating system, who challenged us to abandon conventional software assumptions and begin with the user’s goals instead of technical implementation.
Although the architecture was successfully conceived, senior management ultimately canceled the project in favor of acquiring a promising software company whose technology became the foundation for the company’s next-generation product line.
Advisor to Founder / Interim CEO
Environmental Tillage Systems (ETS) was founded by a Minnesota farmer who invented an innovative soil tillage implement for environmentally friendly no-till row crop farming. After spending two years building and refining a dozen prototype machines in neighboring farm fields, demand grew rapidly following endorsements from a worldwide who’s who of agricultural researchers, university professors, and no-till industry experts.
After several unsuccessful attempts with traditional consulting firms, I was brought in to establish a practical production planning and inventory control system. Within a few months my responsibilities expanded to include accounting systems, cost structure analysis, international trade, engineering change control, configurable bills of material, financial modeling and variance analysis, and introducing the Theory of Constraints as a management methodology throughout the company.
As rapid growth strained the company’s finances, ETS sought private investment and adopted a more formal management structure. During this transition, I worked closely with the founder to realign the business around a focused strategy and a financially sustainable operating model while preserving the entrepreneurial vision that had made the company successful.
I authored the company’s comprehensive business plan used to raise capital from angel investors before transitioning my responsibilities to an interim CEO as the company entered its next phase of growth. Environmental Tillage Systems continues to operate in Northfield, Minnesota, and I remain a shareholder.