About Me

After graduating from Massapequa High School in 1988, I went on to SUNY Farmingdale, where I majored in graphic communications—a study of the entire printing process, from concept to final printed product. At the time, desktop publishing was still in its formative years; as such, the program focused more on the traditional methods of typesetting, graphics and publishing, and less on the more modern electronic means.

Graduating college, I found that most companies required knowledge of DTP programs I'd never heard of before, such as Quark XPress, Pagemaker, and Illustrator. It was then that I purchased my first computer, an Apple Macintosh IIci, along with Quark XPress. I taught myself enough about the computer and program to land me my first graphics job at a small mom-and-pop printing company called RMS Printing in Farmingdale. There, I learned (with the patience of the owner) how to set up, create, and finalize basic one-color and two-color jobs such as flyers, business cards, and menus on a Mac DTP system.

From there, I moved on to a larger family-owned printing company called Agrecolor, Inc., where I was taught more about the Adobe programs, including Illustrator and Photoshop, as well the nuances of four-color printing. It was here that I also gained a great deal of experience about troubleshooting jobs and computers.

After several years, I was confident enough about my abilities to move away from the smaller print companies and into the larger publishing field. I obtained a job with PTN Publishing (now Cygnus Business Media), where I learned much about magazine production, ad creation and media design. Eventually, Cygnus upgraded its software to include the Adobe Create Suite, at which time I became proficient in Adobe InDesign, as well as increasing my knowledge of Photoshop.

During that time, I also worked for Star Community Publishing Group, which puts out such local papers as the Shopper's Guide, The Marketeer, The Pennysaver and This Week. I was one of several artists in charge of creating, altering, and troubleshooting advertiser ads for many of the weekly papers.