If you let me look at the bottom of your shoes, I can tell you if you pronate or supinate. I possess this precious gift because I worked at Medved Running and Walking Outfitters on Monroe Avenue while in high school. I spent most of what I earned on outdoor gear. I used most of that gear while running Cross Country for Pittsford Sutherland High School. I was a good runner in high school. I was an abysmal runner in college. Why Syracuse University agreed to put me on their CC team is beyond me. I lasted one season.
That meant more time for radio. My first on-air job was at WAER-FM (NPR). They paid me in experience, which I used to land a job at 570WSYR-AM. My first day on the job was 9/11/01.
Next came TV. News10Now was about to launch when they hired me. Time Warner Cable wanted R News to have a sister station in Syracuse. I started on 9/11/03. It was there, in the train-station-turned-TV-station on Erie Boulevard, two very important things happened: I learned how to tell a visual story and I met my wife, Jill.
Jill and I left Syracuse for Boston where I reported for WLVI-TV (CW). Remember the Big Dig collapse? I’ll never forget it. A year later the station was sold and more than 100 people had to find new jobs; I was one of them. I’ll forever be grateful for the call that came in from Denver.
KUSA-TV (NBC) needed a bureau reporter in Fort Collins, CO. I hadn’t heard of Fort Collins. Turns out it’s one of the nicest places on planet Earth. To make it nicer, I worked for one of the best stations in the country and with one of the sweetest men I’ve ever known. Gary Wolfe and I toured northern Colorado together telling stories. We told stories about people, but also about nature: the elks bugling in Rocky Mountain National Park, the hopes and fears floating around the proposed Glade Reservoir and the devastation left by an EF-3 tornado that passed a half-mile from our truck. We won an Emmy Award for that tornado coverage.
The move back to Rochester came in 2011. It was time to be near family. Time to be home. I returned to WHAM-TV (ABC), the station at which I interned 11 years prior. Four years later, I became the evening anchor and managing editor at News 8. This job is the job of a lifetime and I hope to make it last about that long.
Outside of work, I run, read and struggle with Spanish and the guitar. Don’t be surprised if you spot Jill and me walking our dogs in the Village of Pittsford or playing “gitch you” with our 6-year-old son, Isaac, on a local playground. If you see me, please say hello. You can even show me the bottom of your shoe.
