Ron's Professional Background

I have had a lifelong love affair with learning and teaching in the digital arts, business and computer sciences.

I had my first photograph published in Popular Mechanics when I was twelve, and I have carried a camera ever since. In my high school years in Mesa, Arizona, I was the school photographer shooting everything from portraits to sports and all student events. I also had my first magazine cover published by the National Science Teacher and saw my photographs routinely published in the Mesa Tribune and The Arizona Republic..

By high school graduation in 1955, I decided to enter the U.S. Air Force and asked for photographic school. Despite warnings from former military family friends not to ask, I did and found myself in Denver Colorado, at the U.S.A.F. Photographic School.

I quickly passed through the first block of classes in just days due to my experience; and at the tender age of 18, I was suddenly thrust into teaching some beginning classes while taking advanced classes in color printing, aerial photography, and motion picture work.

In 1956 I was transferred to Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, as an aerial photo reconnaissance specialist. After being there only three months, I was approached to change my specialty to a very different field of work, electronic warfare operations and maintenance.

While being trained in this electronics specialty, I got my first exposure to the world of electronic computing. I served in the Air Force from 1955 through 1963, serving seven years with the 509th Bomb Wing of the Strategic Air Command. I had the best of all worlds during those years, working in the field of computing, flying, and working with electronic warfare operations where I also taught ECM management.

After leaving the service in 1963, I decided to enroll in college under the GI Bill. With a young family to support, I returned to my avocation, photography, and opened a photo studio and lab in my home town of Mesa, where I did advertising photography, portraits and weddings.

I soon found myself doing computer programming on the side; and after less than two years of professional photography, working day and night, I returned to computing full time along with my college work.

I was soon offered a position at the Maricopa Community College District Computer Center as a shift supervisor and found myself again working night and day. Those long hours and efforts were rewarded when, in 1969, I was offered my first full-time college teaching position in Computer Science at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona.

I moved my family to Prescott; and by 1980, while teaching I had also developed and administered, from Yavapai College, the largest educational computer network in the Southwest. That network included ninety-five Arizona school districts, twelve community colleges in Arizona and California, and various departments at Arizona State University, the University of Arizona, and Northern Arizona University.

During these years, I always performed my own photographic work to use in my Computer Science teaching. After a divorce I also got back into painting with acrylics, at one point supplemented my income painting scenes from the old mining town of Jerome, Arizona, and selling my works to tourists while living there and teaching at the Verde Valley Campus of Yavapai College.

In 1980 after ten years at Yavapai College, I left and started building an underground home on ten acres north of Prescott. This was quite a life-altering experience jumping from a high technology environment to living without electricity and running water.