Biography

In the beginning…

I was about five years old when I started drawing cartoons. My earliest memories were of me cutting out some paper to make a small comic book with about 10 pages where a cup of coffee was chasing a sugar cube. (give me a break, it was 1965!) I loved my art classes in school an looked forward to every day. One time, after seeing Jaws at the theater and reading the book, I wanted a Jaws tee-shirt but, could find none so, I bought some acrylics and recreated the Jaws poster on the white tee shirt with the rest of the shark wrapping around to the back. I wore that shirt in high school and so impressed my science teacher that he had me write a report on sharks and bought a large canvas and acrylic paints to paint another shark picture. Apparently, someone in town saw that painting and he wanted me to come to a custom van painting shop to learn how to paint vans. But, being an Army brat, I couldn’t. My dad and the family were on our way to Germany. All opportunities to go to art school were rendered null and void because of this. But, that didn’t stop me from drawing and doodling.

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Fast forward to the 1980s. I was out of the USAF and working for Hughes Aircraft. During union negotiations, many of us felt like we got screwed out of a 25 cent raise. We tried to raise our voices but felt unheard by the union and the company. So, I drew a technician in a lab coat screwed to a wall with a giant screw with the caption, “Feeling screwed for 25 cents?” I taped that picture up in bathrooms, hallways, etc. Nobody knew who put those drawings up there. They called me “The mad paster”. I drew a few more variations on the theme and I liked the anonymous attention. After a few years, I transferred to another Hughes aircraft facility where I started drawing cartoons for fun, even caricatures of my team mates. I convinced the Hughes Aircraft newsletter to take some of my cartoons. They were all measurement science (metrology) based cartoons I called Hughes-Toons. Well, that was the true beginning. I continued to draw these cartoons for years.

I then went to work for GTE. There was no newsletter but, there was annoying turmoil and fun. I drew caricatures of team mates there but, I also drew caricatures of pesky, annoying managers who tortured us. A few of my drawings got around and those managers were desperate to find out who drew them so that the offender may be immediately fired.

After GTE, I went to work for the US Navy. The Navy has a monthly newsletter they called the METBUL, short for Metrology Bulletin. It was here that I finally decided to begin advancing my cartooning from just a fun hobby to something more meaningful. The METBUL was a monthly bulletin with some articles from the Navy’s Measurement Science community as well as listings of new or discontinued procedures and other fairly dry odds and ends. It was not popular. I convinced the editors that a monthly calibration cartoon, “Cal-Toons”, would attract readership. For me, the idea was to force myself to come up with a new cartoon every month and hone my cartooning skills to the point where I would have a consistent, recognizable style. Well, the Cal -Toons were a hit and the METBUL became more widely read. Eventually, those cartoons made it over to a magazine called Cal Lab Magazine. The rest is history, as they say. Those cartoons are included on this website and I hope you enjoy them.

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