Becoming CEO of My Time

35 years ago, I thought I was about to embark on a journalistic career at CNN. I had completed an internship there and they offered me a job. The problem was that entry-level job at CNN paid 40% less than I made waiting tables four days a week while in college. I basically couldn’t afford to take the job at CNN and had no idea what I was going to do. 

At that time, in 1991, the U.S. economy was in a mild, but significant recession. The biggest factor in that recession was its impact on hiring, and I was seeing that at every turn.

Fortunately, I soon heard about an entry-level editorial job at a trade journal publishing company. I didn’t even know what trade journals were, but it paid roughly what I was making waiting tables so I could at least keep my head above water and put my journalism degree to use. I started out as an editorial assistant on Modern Paint and Coatings and Robotics World, which gave me a great introduction to the worlds of process, batch and discrete manufacturing. Many thanks go to the first editor-in-chief I worked with, Larry Anderson, who taught me the B2B editorial ropes. The picture I included here shows Larry (right) and I in 1992 or 1993 — back when wearing ties to work was still mandated.

In the early years of my editorial career, I often focused on manufacturing software while editing and writing for APICS, OR/MS Today (operations research/management science), the Manufacturing Intelligence newsletter and Software Strategies. This is where I was able to delve into what, at the time, seemed to be almost esoteric technologies like artificial intelligence, neural networks and deep learning.

Little did I know then that the years I spent covering this in the 1990s would put me in a great position for the AI boom in industry that has been taking place over the last several years. 

From there, leading the editorial teams at Control Engineering and Design News added new depth to my understanding of core plant-floor technologies such as controllers, drives, motors, sensors and industrial networks. And since 2011, I’ve had the opportunity to bring all this together at Automation World — initially to lead content development for and host The Automation Conference, which ran from 2012 to 2019. I’ve been editor-in-chief at Automation World since 2013.

It’s been wild ride these past 35 years — I’ve met many interesting people and traveled a good bit of the globe, but now I’m ready to be CEO of my time and spend my third act focused on my own agenda. 

If we’ve crossed paths over the years and you’d like to keep in touch, you can reach me at [email protected].