Career Opportunities

I'm always curious about how people land in their lifelong career, for those lucky enough to have one, and assuming you would consider it lucky.

Many follow in the footsteps of a parent. Doctors begat doctors; lawyers begat lawyers, etc. Others follow some childhood dream. Some just stumble into something that makes sense for them. I fall into the latter category.

My dad was an inactive farmer, meaning that he owned farmland but someone else farmed it and we got a cut. He had various and sundry other jobs -- worked for the postal service I think, for awhile, did some housemoving, whatever. He could do just about anything. But I never remember him having anything like a traditional "career."

Nevertheless, I followed in his footsteps until I was 30, doing this and that, or nothing at all in many cases. My college studies impacted me more in my political philosophy than anything else. College certainly didn't have much of an influence at all in my current career.

I finally got into television and radio advertising and it was a perfect fit for me. As a child and a teenager, I was obsessed with geography, numbers, and broadcasting. It didn't take long after I got a job with an ad agency back in 1990 to realize that I had landed at a place where I could plant my feet and be happy.

What do you do for a living? Is it a match made in heaven? And what made you choose it, or did it just happen?

If I hadn't been fortunate enough to end up doing what I do, I can't imagine what the alternative would have been. The only other thing I would have wanted to do is something like this: