When you trust your gear to an engineer it helps to know the engineer.
From an early age I knew I wanted to work in television. Being from Athens, Georgia I naturally followed the rise of Turner Broadcasting and during the late 1970's I set my sights on working for Ted Turner. I had also been an electronics geek and built radios and stereos from scratch. So it followed that once I graduated from electronics school in Gainesville, Georgia, I interviewed and was hired by WTBS in 1983. I was an operations engineer at WTBS for 2 years before moving to Headline News Network (CNN2) in 1985. I was a master control engineer at HNN and began my maintenance engineer internship during this phase. In 1988 I transferred to the field engineering department of CNN. It was during this period I travelled the world engineering CNN's remote broadcast sites. I covered almost every major news event worldwide from 1988-1991. It was during this time I learned the most about electronic news gathering and field production by repairing Sony cameras and decks in the worst conditions you could imagine. After the first Gulf War, the travelling was just too much so I ,regrettably, left CNN and moved to the Sony Broadcast and Professional service center in Norcross, Georgia. I was hired to work exclusively on broadcast cameras and video tape machines. I learned an immense amount by working with some of the most talented and industrious people I have ever known. I attended quite a number of Sony schools and classes.
In 1993 I was hired by WATL (A Fox O&O) in Atlanta. Fox wanted to start up a news operation at the station and my news engineering background fit right in. Fox then abruptly sold WATL and there was a managment shake-up. I went from maintenance engineer to chief engineer in two years. The station was purchased by a group headed up by Quincey Jones. The folks I worked with were simply terrific and I am still great friends with some of them today. In the last quarter of 1999, I teamed up with an old friend from Sony to co-found Backporch Broadcast Consultants. I sold my share of the company to my former partner in order to spend more time with my family and in 2003 I opened Kinescope.