The Travel and Tourism Industry caters to the need for recreation. It can be hard work making sure that your guests are having fun. While working at WTRF, Mark Davis and I traveled around visiting area attractions that are within driving distance of Wheeling WV.
Here is a period piece about one such resort in Canaan Valley WV. This is an old dub (copy).
I had the pleasure of working with Sonny Miller and Ira Opper on Surfer Video Magazine. His career was amazing and he made the jump to hollywood and got to work on many major motion pictures.
My first TV Interview was with Steve Caballero in 1985 in Raleigh NC at the Endless Grind
Skateboarding Competition. I invited my surfing friend and former world champion free-style skateboarding champion Reggie Barnes to our TV Studios at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill for my Senior Project. I began producing Surfing Segments for ESPN in conjunction with Surfer Magazine in 1987.
During the 90s I produced a series of Feature Length Action Sport Films called East Coast Motions. Volume II, Hatteras Surf Feast was released internationally and funded a winter 
at Snowshoe WV and the creation of Volume III, “Cheat Mountain Shredders”. I began producing and streaming video for the internet in 1997 and actively used, the Action Sports Industry to market and brand one of the First International Internet Services.
My love of Digital Media has led to work with MTV, Hurley and Monster Energy. I have a passion for production and an eye for detail that crosses all demographics. My TV Program, Eastern Extreme gives me the opportunity to mentor and work with many independent and up and coming photographers. Many of my Action Sports Segments air on Havoc TV.
My career spans an interesting time period. When I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with my degree in RTVMP (Radio, Television and Movie Production) it took an entire tractor 
trailer full of equipment to run a decent production and video cameras still used picture tubes. I had solid skills on all sides of this. My first camera was a DXC3000K Manufactured by Sony and was a first generation CCD (charge-coupled device)style camera and my footage looked much better than the network standard at that time. When computer editing came out in the early 90’s you got a virtual computer based program that mimicked the hardware I was used to using. This gave me an excellent point of reference to learn and master computer editing and video encoding standards.
I moved to Wheeling WV in 1992 and met an old school journalist by the name of Joseph Tarantini. His ‘on-air’ name was Mark Davis and he had worked at WTRF since the early days of television.
Back then all reporters and announcers with ethnic names would change them to something that sounded mainstream for the time. He was a treasure trove of information and had been under-utilized by the station. I worked weekends (the most unpopular shift) with him. It was great to learn pure journalism and how to report by just the facts.
Over time he and Igarnered some acclaim 
and moved onto travel reporting. We figured it to be a great way to travel on the stations dime, while providing a valuable service. Viewers enjoyed the “Tri-State Travel Series”. Most destinations were to be reached in one tank of gas. It was one of my career highlights to win an AP Award for Photojournalism under his tutelage.
Mark passed away in 2011 and I will never forget the valuable skills he taught me. I will miss his engaging conversations and unbiased view of the world. Here are a few of the segments we produced in no particular order. They are all stand alone complete reports. Just click on the image:
