: About Me

Creatively interrelating the fields of aviation, teaching, writing, foreign language, and travel and tourism, I have amassed degrees and life experience in all five.

Relative to aviation education, for instance, I have earned the Associate in Applied Science Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York-College of Technology at Farmingdale and completed some 30 hours of Private Pilot Flight Training in Cessna C-152 and -172 Skyhawk aircraft at the SUNY Aerospace Center-Republic Airport.  At the US and European training centers of Capitol Air, Austrian Airlines, Swissair, Lufthansa German Airlines, and United I earned approximately 50 Airline Ground Operations Certificates and Licenses in the areas of Passenger Service, Baggage Services, Reservations, tours, Aircraft Handling/Ramp Supervision/Weight and Balance, Cargo, Emergency Procedures, Security, Sales, Route Planning, and Management, as well as having taken safety and security courses at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.  Additional Aviation Safety courses were taken at the Air Safety Institute of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.

Within the teaching field, I have earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College; the Art and Science of Teaching 1, Art and Science of Teaching 2, and Effective Strategies for Today’s Educator certificates from the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University; and three New York State Education Department certifications.

In terms of writing, I have taken journalism courses at C. W. Post and completed a Multi-Genre Writing Program at Hofstra University, entailing memoir, magazine article, short fiction, poetry, and press release writing.

Language skills were amassed at C. W. Post with a summa-cum-laude Bachelor of Arts Degree in Comparative Languages, encompassing German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and Latin.

And I subsequently earned the Travel Career Development Certificate at the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University.

Having amassed three decades in the airline industry with Capitol Air, Midway Airlines, Triangle Aviation Services, Royal Jordanian Airlines, and Austrian Airlines, and their Delta, Atlantic Excellence, and Star alliances, I have accrued experience in the areas of Passenger Service, Ticket Sales-Reservations, Local Training, Passenger Service Supervision, Ramp and Baggage Room Supervision, Operations-Load Control-Aircraft Dispatch, Station Administration, Passenger Service and Operations Training, and Station Management, during which time I have had working affiliations with Icelandair, Delta Air Lines, Swissair, Sabena Belgian World Airways, Malev Hungarian Airlines, SAS, Lufthansa, and United Airlines.

At Austrian Airlines, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations.

Also at Austrian, I created the local, US, and ultimate North American Station Training programs, subdivided into the four areas of Initial Passenger Service, Ramp Supervision Certification, Load Control Licensing, and Airline Management.  For the program itself, I created the North American Station Training Program Course List, the individual Course Notices, and the graduating Certificates of Completion.  I wrote 27 training manuals and textbooks and three station histories, and devised the 28 curriculums, which provided the educational foundation of the 63 courses taught to Austrian Airlines and Austrian Airlines-handling carriers in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

An Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, I advised the Aviation Department about airline industry trends in a series of individual and full advisory committee meetings and suggested course and curriculum creations and re-directions based upon them.  I adapted airline training programs and devised original courses and lectures into university-level offerings, experimentally teaching them to aviation faculty and Aviation Administration Degree students.  I familiarized potential enrollees with the university’s aviation degree programs; pursued a series of aerospace museum research trips; and created a university-airline industry employment bridge, all of which culminated in the Airline Management Program Blueprint.

In 2006, I created the Airline Management Certificate Program, comprised of a pre-program, four university-level courses, and an airline industry internship, and this had been accepted by and offered at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center at Farmingdale State University in 2007.  It had also been explored as a stand-alone certificate program and the core of Associates and Bachelor degree programs at Empire State College.

At Hofstra University, I wrote and taught the Long Island’s Aviation Heritage Course.

A frequent lecturer, I gave presentations at the Farmingdale State University Student Aviation Seminar, the Liberty Partnership Program/Summer of Aviation at Republic (SOAR), and the Aerospace Education Corporation Aviation Career Fair Programs.  I have been invited by Cunard to lecture on its transatlantic liners: the Queen Elizabeth 2, the Queen Mary 2, and the Queen Victoria.   

A writer for Cole Palen’s Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York, I researched and wrote aerodrome- and aircraft-related articles for its quarterly Rotary Ramblings newsletter and website, and explored educational programs based upon them.              

As a freelance author, I have written some 75 books of the short story, novel, nonfiction, essay, poetry, article, log, curriculum, training manual, and textbook genre in English, German, and Spanish, principally focusing on aviation and travel, and also wrote some 125 individual articles, memoirs, short stories, and poems.  I have been published in book, magazine, newsletter, and electronic Web site form, in the latter of which I attained Marketplace Approved Writer, Marketplace Premier Writer, Platinum Level Author, and bronze and silver badges for creative writing statuses.

I have maintained professional affiliations with the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Rhinebeck Aerodrome Museum, and the National Air and Space Society, and I am a Cradle of Aviation Museum Aerospace Honoree and a National Air and Space Museum-Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center sponsor.  I am a member of the Hofstra University Continuing Education Writers’ Community.

Fluent in English, German, and Spanish, with secondary knowledge of Dutch, Italian, and Latin, I have traveled globally and extensively, completing some 350 lifetime trips by air, sea, rail, and road to Canada, the United States, Mexico, the Atlantic, the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Greenland, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific.  This travel, which has facilitated considerable freelance aviation and travel photography, has encompassed more than 100 private vehicle and car rental road trips in 27 US states, 11 Canadian provinces, and ten countries, covering 35,000 miles, as well as 35 rail journeys in 18 US states, eight Canadian provinces, and 12 countries, totaling more than 10,000 miles.  Its 27 cruises and crossings have covered 60,000 nautical miles during 205 days at sea, while more than 1,000 air sectors have exceeded 3,000 airborne hours.

I have attained some 40 academic, employment, and travel honors and awards throughout my career.

My lifetime hobbies and interests have encompassed arts and crafts, cycling, model railroading, music (instrumental and vocal), aquariums, landscaping, horseback riding, photography, live theater, and aerospace museums.

Aviation, the field round which my other four revolve, has remained their core of connection throughout.

My passion is ...

Aviation, writing, teaching, travel, foreign language, photography.

I know too much about ...

Aviation, writing, teaching, travel, foreign language, photography.

My parents always told me ...

Be yourself! Write about what you know.

My childhood ambition ...

Aviation, writing, teaching, travel, foreign language, photography.

My favorite memory ...

All 350 global trips.

Why I write ...

To fulfill the purpose for which God created me.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

Anything aviation- and travel-related.

My first job ...

University.

My inspiration ...

All internal fulfillments serve as inspirations to reconnect me with my forgotten, but intended life purpose.

Arts & Humanities > 20th & 21st Century US History The history of Millville Army Air Field, NJ

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I Driving into Millville Airport, currently a general aviation facility in Southern New Jersey, is like entering a World War II time portal: several cinder block buildings and barracks, characteristic of the war, stand eerily silent and vacated, as if the area had once provided the stage for some vast performance, but its players had long since departed. The runways still routinely field take offs and landings, but mostly of single-engined Cessnas and Pipers. Yet, the location had been an integral part of World War II and therefore remains historically significant. Sparked, like numerous w...

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