Aluminum Screen Manufacturer
(Summer of 1963)

This was the first real job I ever had. My dad had just bought me my first car, a 1955 Ford. My then girl friend and future wife's mother helped me find a summer job to help with the expenses with my car. The business was manufacturing aluminum window screens. We were working in a small metallic building, with no air conditioning, in the middle of the summer in Houston, Texas. Fortunately, the summer ended and I went back to school.

Montgomery Ward
(Fall of 1963)

My second real employment endeavor was a Christmas job with a large nationwide department store. This one I acquired myself. My job description was "stock boy" and I really enjoyed my short time there. I remember the week after Christmas ended, I was still showing up to work. One of the supervisors finally came to me and thanked me for the great job I had done but let me know the temporary Christmas jobs were all coming to an end.

Anna Jean Martin School of Dance
(1963 - 1965)

From the time I got my own transportation, until I married in the summer of 1965, I cleaned my mother's business, a small children's dance studio located on South Richey in Pasadena, Texas. This was a one day a week job that she paid me $5.00 and was my gas money for the week. However, I also had three of my neighborhood friends ride to school with me for $1.00 a week each.

Southland Corp. (7-11 Stores)
(July/1965 - March/1966)

I was confronted with an impending marriage, during the summer of 1965, I pulled out the Houston Chronicle and started looking through the employment section. One of the first calls I made was to the 7-11 convenience story chain. They invited me to come and take their employment tests and within a week I was the assistant manager in a two man store located on Hwy 45 North and Little York Road.
I was by myself in the store and responsible for keeping the store clean, stocking the shelves and cooler, processing the sales and checking out at the end of the night. During one three day period, my manager had been off sick and I was running the store myself, from 7:00AM until 11:00PM. At the end of the third day the 7-11 inspector dropped by for his monthly inspection and we made the highest grade in the district. On another occasion, the secret shopper popped in and I tried selling him something other than what he was purchasing and was awarded a 7-11 cigarette lighter.
My starting salary was $300.00 a month, for a six day a week job. However, the company was short handed and I usually worked the seventh day for an extra $50.00. I really needed the money since I was supporting myself, my wife and first child. We were living in a one bedroom apartment, paying a car note and yes, we even had health insurance. The only day of the year that 7-11 closed was Christmas. I worked seven days a week from December 26, 1965 until I left to go to work for Continental Airlines on April 1, 1966.

Continental Airlines
(April/1966 - June/1970)

Haven been given a reference from a friends father, who was the head of maintenance for Continental Airlines, I went to work at the Hobby Airport as a ramp agent. My job was loading baggage and freight on to commercial airliners with a starting salary of $460.00 per month, for only five days a week. This is employment I held for almost five years. During the period between flights, when the other ramp agents were setting around waiting for the next flight to come in, I started hanging out in the operation department helping the forms agents fill out the paper work required for each flight. This was the weight and balance, dispatch releases and weather information the flight crews used to complete the flight.
All of a sudden one day one of the forms agents called in sick and there was no one to work the forms. The supervisors came to me and asked if I thought I could do the job and I said I could. From that point one, I was the standby form agent and shortly after that, one of the full time forms agents transferred to the ticket counter and I was a full time office worker. This meant I came to work in a Continental issued suit and spent my time working with the pilots and dispatching the aircraft. I began taking flying lessons and soloed on July 21, 1966 which lead to my first professional flying job in 1970.

The Houston Intercontinental Airport, located in the north part of Houston, was completed in 1969. Continental Airlines moved from Hobby Airport, close to where I lived, to the new airport an hours drive away. However, at the same time there was a small commuter airline that started service between Hobby Airport and Houston Intercontinental and between a small short field airport that was built close to the Johnson Spacecraft Center. As fortune may have it, Metro Airlines used the Continental terminal for their operation and I was in personal contact with their pilots on a daily basis.

I was continuing to build my flight time by flight instructing, towing gliders and flying my own 1942 Taylorcraft.

One afternoon in 1970 a Metro co-pilot came up to me and told me he was going to turn in his resignation that day and I needed to be in there office the next morning, if I wanted a chance at the job.
The next morning, I was setting in the Metro Airlines operation at 8:00AM. When Ben Taylor, the director of operations, walked in he saw me sitting there and stopped to ask me what I was doing. I told him I was looking for a job. He asked me how many flight hours I had and I told him 1000. He then asked how many hours of multi engine flight time I had and I replied 30. His response to that was "I wish you had more". I then said, "If you hire me, I will have more". He liked the answer and offered me the position. Within two weeks I was a professional pilot.

Houston Metro Airlines
(June/1970 - May/1976)

I was a co-pilot for the first three years but in 1973 I became Houston Metro Airline's youngest Captain in their history, I was 26 years old.

Accustaflex, Inc.
(May/1976 - November/1979)

This was a company formed with my brother, for the production of stereo speaker systems. We rented a small metallic building off the Gulf Freeway and sold our products in several Houston area electronic stores, including Fingers Furniture.
The sound business lead us to a point where we were providing the sound support for local concerts and ultimately the running of a local night spot, "Max's On the Border".
My brother and I owned and operated the live band night club for three and one half years. It was located just south of the Hobby Airport and was my first time to manage all aspects of a business. We had in the neighborhood of fifteen employees. I also was responsible for booking the bands, advertising, purchasing, maintenance and the nightly operation. My brother left the club after a year and a half and I continued by myself for the next two years. I purchased the building we had been renting for three years and gave up the nightly operation of a club to returned to Aviation. The club was being rented out for a couple of years but burned down in 1982, without insurance.

Corporate Aviation, Inc.
(November/1979 - September/1980)

Chief Pilot/Director of Operations for a charter company located at the Houston Hobby Airport. Following my decision to re-enter the aviation industry, I began to submit resumes at the Hobby Airport. The second day of my search, i walked in to the old Humble Oil hangar and ran in to a high friend that was managing a full service hangar, called Corporate Aviation, Inc. He told me that their chief pilot had just taken another job and he was looking for someone with the Federal Aviation Agency's requirements for a chief pilot of a licensed charter company. I qualified and within a few days, I was the new chief pilot of a charter company with two turboprop twin Beechcrafts and several multiengine piston cabin class aircraft.
About six months in to my joining Corporate Aviation, The friend that hired my took a position with another flight department and I was then named the General Manager, Chief Pilot and Director of Operations. We offered aircraft maintenance, with 12 full time mechanics, hangar and ramp space and the charter service described earlier. As with most all aviation operations, this one was being supported by a local philanthropist. During the next few months one of our hangar customers asked my to check out as copilot in their Lear Jet 35. Following a brief training period, I was now flying copilot on a corporate jet.
At the end of the first year, the owner of the operation decided to close it down and I was offered a job with Porta Kamp Manufacturing, the owners of the Lear Jet.

Porta Kamp Manufacturing, Inc.
(September/1980 -September 1983)

Chief Pilot for a corporate flight department, operating a Lear 35, King Air 200, Beachcraft Baron and Bell 206L1 helicopter.

JBH Air Charter, Inc.
(February/1984 - August/1985)

Chief Pilot for a a large aircraft charter company located at Houston's Hobby Airport, operating a Lear 35, Falcon 10, multiple King Airs and multi engine piston aircraft.

Dr. Hampton C. Robinson
(October/1985 - July/1987)

Aviation Department Manager/Chief Pilot/Director of Aviation for the operation of a Falcon 10, N10F. Dr. Robinson passed away in 1987. His son inherited the aircraft and incorporated under the name, Arilius Aviation, Inc. From 1985 until 1998, I remained in the same office doing the same job, with three different owners. I was responsible for every aspect of the operation of a high performance jet aircraft on a commercial charter certificate. We were operating the aircraft in both domestic and international conditions. I coordinated the maintenance, scheduling and training. I also was responsible for flight planning, including the weight and balance, fuel requirements and federal aviation regulation adherence.

Arilius Aviation, Inc.
(July/1987 - February/1989)

Aviation Department Manager/Chief Pilot/Director of Aviation for the operation of the same Falcon 10, N10F. Dr. Robinson's son was co-owners in the aircraft with his attorney. A problem arose that required the attorney to sell his interest and the son decided to sell also. I approached a couple of our charter customers and the sale was made to a local pension fund manager. He incorporated under the name DB Aviation, Inc. My job description remained the same.

DB Aviation, Inc.
(February/1989 - November/1998)

Aviation Department Manager/Chief Pilot/Director of Aviation for the operation of the same Falcon 10, N10F. The aircraft was operated for nearly ten years. Following the stock market crash of 1998, the owner was required to sell the aircraft to cover options. My job description remained the same.

SKS-Smart Kids Software, Inc.
(November/1998 - Present)

President/CEO for a company I founded in 1992 as a sole proprietorship. This company is a childrens educational software on-line resource, located at smartkidssoftware.com. I became interested in educational software following a trip to Chicago. It was winter and I had flown the Falcon 10 into Chicago's Miegs Field, near downtown. I was shopping for something to bring to Krista and Julie and ran across a small upstart computer software store. There was a small rack of educational titles and I purchased "First Number" and "First Letters", by Davidson and Associates. One thing lead to another and the next thing you know my wife and I opened an educational software store, located on Nasa Road One just down the street from the Johnson Spacecraft Center.

We operated the store for the full three years of the lease but decided to not continue further due to problems with my wife. During our "Going Out Of Business" sale, we sold nearly $70,000 worth of software in two weeks. The remainder of the stock was moved into my garage where it set for over a year. Following the sale of the Falcon, I decided to see if I could make a go at selling the software over the internet. My son and his wife home schooled their four children until their two oldest reached high school age. This lead us to our once a year venture outside of the house to a booth at the South East Texas Home School Convention.

Like magic, internet orders started going through the ceiling. In 2001 we were the 23rd fastest growing businesses in Houston, 54th in 2002 and would have been in the top 100 in 2003 but the University of Houston discontinued the awards. My job description included accounting, personnel, payroll, purchasing, sales, web site design, stocking, order processing, shipping and yes, facility maintenance. The business moved into a 1500 square foot mini warehouse in 2002.

The business reached the million dollar a year level in just three years and expanded to 3,000 square feet. Then came 2003, 2004 and 2005. The focus on education turned into a focus on war. During those years the price of educational software began to go down and each year we had to sell twice as much software to keep the same gross. In 2006 the entire industry began a decline of somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% per year. By the time the summer of 2008 arrived, we were struggling to keep things going. At that point we returned to 1,500 square feet and five full time employees. Following the onset of the recession, I found myself loaning the business what if took to survive and we cut back to a level that was 30% of what it had been. I was forced into early retirement and a single employee and my two daughters are now running the entire business. The schools we sold to don't have any money and neither does the general population. The only thing that keeps us going is the occasional stimulus funded head start program purchase.