My actual dream when I was younger was to do sports play-by-play, but you spend you're whole life reassessing where your career will go. I was so afraid that I'd end up at a local radio station doing that for a high school football team for the rest of my life. I didn't really think that I could make it to West Virginia University or to do it for the Pittsburgh Steelers or Pittsburgh Pirates. I'm pretty loyal to my sports teams and I didn't know if I could go and do it in Arizona or Nashville. Now that I look back on it, I realize it wouldn't be such a bad thing. So I tried a little of it [play-by-play broadcasting] and decided to go the television route instead.

In school I was in a broadcast news program, but also did work for the campus radio station and did play-by-play and Marshall University football and basketball games. I liked that but it seemed like TV was my calling. In my area at West Virginia it's pretty small market television. In Huntington you're in the top 60 markets. I think we're 57 market. It's a little more, I don't want to say "big time", but it's more in depth. In small market television you have few people doing many jobs and the bigger the market the more specialized you can be.

I got a new job at a station and I was ecstatic and everything was fine. Well, I was working hard and I was working to improve and the program director came to me one day and said, "We have to talk ...you're fired." That was basically the way it was. I had never been fired before and that's such a strange thing. I said okay and I know he saw this fear in my face. I mean for a college kid, it's not that big of a deal. You can go out and find something else and continue working toward your goal. But it was a shock to me. We talked a little more and he said that I was more than welcome to continue working and improve myself. Anyway, I went and called my girlfriend, who's now my wife, and told her I was just fired. We talked for a while just sitting on my couch. I called my parents and told them and after I hung up I started to cry and cry. Now I look back on it, it was kind of embarrassing but it's something you have to go thru.

A couple moths later things worked out a whole lot better than before than if it wouldn't have happened. Who knows where I would be right now if that wouldn't have happened.

To find opportunities, you always have to keep your eye on everything going on around you. I also believe that large amounts and hard work and dedication, and putting your dues in, and all that stuff, and every chance I got to show myself off were important to me getting where I am today. It seems like things are magnified when you're in a management position like you're under a microscope. There are times when you even can think that your career is teetering on the brink of disaster or on the brink of something really great. The key is working hard to find those opportunities and avoid the pitfalls.

I've never been a person who set a goal that I want to do this or want to be here at a certain point. Success to me is hard work. It's just busting your butt every chance you get and putting in your dues and staying late. Although when you get a family, it changes a little bit. It's almost like you have to do a whole lot more work in less time, but you have to make the most of everyday. To me success is hard work and being recognized for that. Success is a total life package. I don't know if I should say this, but you can't judge success by money or power. You can't solely judge success by this.

I admire people who are like yourself who've decided that they didn't know what they wanted to do. I don't know if I would have...I don't have the words. To say that I'm going to take a completely different course, I don't know if I could do that. A career change to a certain extent I could do, but to quit my job in the corporate world and say I want to start my own business? Everybody's different. It takes some sole searching. A lot of people have confidence and a lot of people lack it. If you're doing something that you cannot stand, you've got to pursue something else, but it'll take a lot of work. You've got to search for what will make you happy and go for it. More than likely if it's a complete career change, it's going to be a lot of work.

It seems like everyone coming out of college wants to hit the home run. That's something that was beaten into our heads; "You can be anyone. You can do anything." That's not true, at least not in many places. I just don't believe there is a job where you walk out right out of school and hit the home run, because you just don't have the experience. Success is hard work. You should never let go of your dreams and you can't take life too seriously, but success is hard work. You're not going to get anywhere without the hard work.