I am a native Texan, raised in the panhandle town of Pampa. I was fortunate after high school to have had an opportunity to live in Helsingborg, Sweden with a family for a year while attending school there. It set the stage for the rest of my life and was an experience I will never forget.
After receiving a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1967, I started a long career as an airline economist. My first job was with the former U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board in Washington, D. C. While working there, I studied international economics at Georgetown University.
Five years later, I was hired by the International Air Transport Association to work in their Geneva, Switzerland office with responsibility for coordination of commercial fare and rate conferences attended by the major airlines of the world. Four years later I moved to New York, New York to head the association's North American office, and this position took me on frequent visits to Montreal, Canada. I returned to Geneva for awhile, working closely with the association's top executives as the airlines made adjustments in their trade association activities to conform with global deregulation by government authorities. I enjoyed all of the travel and opportunities to meet people on short-term work assignments.
After a two year period as an entrepreneur in London, England and Lake Havasu City, Arizona, I re-entered the airline field, again living in Washington, D.C. where I worked for the Airline Tariff Publishing Company at Dulles International Airport.
I moved to Houston, Texas in 1984 after accepting a position with Continental Airlines. I held several Director level positions in the Cargo Division, including Director of Pricing, Industry Affairs, and Corporate Communications. Again the job afforded me the opportunity to do a great deal of travel and to meet many fine people. Moving to Corporate Communications altered my career path again by spinning me into the arena of marketing, advertising, and employee communications.
Upon resigning from Continental Airlines, I focused on marketing and communications after receiving a Masters degree in Communications from Texas Southern University in Houston. I began teaching Communications as an adjunct professor in Houston at Texas Southern University, San Jacinto College and Houston Community College. At the same time, I entered the real estate industry for the next 12 years as a licensed real estate Salesperson in Texas beginning in 1991 and as a Broker from 1993.
In 2003 I moved to Copenhagen, Denmark to pursue a personal relationship with a Dane. Shortly upon arrival, I began working on my first tourist souvenir CD,
101 Things To Love About Copenhagen.
In 2004, I began a course at Roskilde University leading to certification as a tour guide in Denmark, especially in Copenhagen.
