I am a communications professional with more than 20 years of experience. But you can get all of that from my resume. What you came here looking for is context – the meteoric rise, the hubris that eventually led to my downfall, my rock-bottom moment, my road to redemption and my older-but-wiser second act. Here’s the stuff VH1 will someday put in my episode of “Behind the Music.”

(I think I just lost my Millennial audience with that reference. Harry Potter, Blink 182. One Tree Hill. Okay, they’re back.)

I was born and have spent most of my life in Corning in the Finger Lakes region of New York.

I went to college with thoughts of becoming an English teacher. That changed, however, when, after substitute teaching for a couple months, I discovered I don’t like children very much.

Fortunately, there was a sports writing job available at our local newspaper and a managing editor with low standards. A second career was born.

Thanks to some very patient mentors, I eventually got the hang of the “who, what, where, why, when, how” thing. I spent more than a decade in journalism, as a general assignment, politics, education and health reporter for my hometown daily paper. I later served as the managing editor of a weekly paper in Orchard Park (Go Bills).

Unfortunately, my timing sucked. Maybe someone in the industry in the late 90s knew that the internet was going to be a problem, but word had not trickled down to small-town papers. Newsrooms across the country shrank almost daily and it soon became clear that I was never going to hit six figures covering school board meetings. I reluctantly left the job and the industry I loved. Before it left me. I definitely broke up with journalism first, no matter what Becky says. OMG, Becky is the worst.

Since then, I’ve worked in community relations, fund-raising and marketing. With each position I’ve developed new skills. One thing, however, has remained constant – my love of the English language and my need to keep writing. I guess that’s two things. Okay, two things remained constant – my love of the English language, my need to keep writing and my hatred of the Oxford comma.

I’m still living in Corning with the love of my life, my inspiration, Ann. I have four grown children and I’m lucky (yeah, we’ll go with lucky) that they all live close by.

In my free time I enjoy gardening, politics, role-playing and table-top games, cooking, fantasy football and spending time with my dog, Albert. Or anybody’s dog, really. I really like dogs.

I have a dozen other hobbies, including bird watching, genealogy and fishing, that I very much look forward to taking up when I retire, hit the lottery or (more likely) become homeless.

Okay, enough of the foreplay. Hire me.