In the very earliest years of my professional practice, much of the momentum came from some rather unique and highly marketable skills I acquired and refined as both a designer and stand-up deliverer of interactive adult learning on a wide range of topics. These were definitely my ‘Hamburg years’, as I travelled North America completing one-to-five day gigs in virtually every city, state and province. I must credit here the dozen or so highly skilled mentors from the team of Practical Management Associates in California for their help in laying a solid foundation to my career as an independent educator. I would name them here, but I know I’d leave someone out … it’s been a while. They know who they are.

Over the next decade, these skills led to incredible opportunities to influence the corporate training programs and classroom approaches of hundreds of trainers and educators, with clients ranging from Air Traffic Control, to Nuclear Operations, to restaurant chains and flight kitchen staff, to the heavy construction trades, and everything in between.

The street-drawn caricature shown here was commissioned one summer night in the alleys of Old Montreal by a diverse group of young corporate trainers who I’d been leading through a 5-day program of instructional design and delivery. The firecracker signified their appreciation for learning the art of engaging their students, and applying creative designs to ensure continuing interaction and superior learning outcomes. It was 1979, I was 25 and on fire. I still apply many of those same techniques in my adult learning designs and in my teaching and moderation activities today.