I love to address anyone in sales, as we producers are some of the world's most dynamic sales executives.  We wake up in the morning with a great idea, proceed to one of the mecca's of entertainment:  Hollywood, New York, Washington DC, Cannes, London where we sit in meetings and convince networks, international distributors, studios or streaming services to give us an amount of money you could build a high rise apartment or office building and collect revenue from for decades.  All because we have an idea with no actual substance or form.  It is selling the ultimate intangible.  And, we've done it on four feature films for such companies as Disney, United Artists, Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios, ABC Family, CBS, Discovery Channels, Smithsonian to name just a few.  

What also excites me is the opportunity to share with audiences, whether students or convention-goers looking to be inspired my remarkable journey of having survived being raised in a violent alcoholic home.  Standing on the stairway of our beautiful Cape Cod house, my father, a veteran fighter pilot, successful life underwriter and civic politician loaded a 12-gauge shotgun in an alcoholic blackout, aimed it at my mother and I and pulled the trigger and the gun jammed.  My older brother walked through the door and disarmed him before he could get it to fire.

The damage that did to me as a 12-year old could easily have set me down a path of violence and criminality.  But, through a profound spiritual experience, I was able to channel my incredible drive and ambition to many successful careers first in the financial sector on the floor of the Toronto Stock Exchange, followed by three years with two major Canadian Life Insurance companies (where I learned many of the secrets of successful selling).  That led me to my first of many positions as a president when we obtained an Earl Nightingale Distributorship from the Nightingale Conant Corporation through the good offices of Bob Proctor.  

My very early years were involved in the music industry where my oldest and best friend and I whose uncle and God Father was one of Canada's Prime Ministers and he and I met the Beatles when we were in my teens.  He would go on to bring John Lennon to Toronto at the Toronto Rock & Roll Revival, and today musicologists consider that to be the defining moment that the Beatles broke up as he played with Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman and Yoko Ono at the Toronto Rock & Roll Revival.  

I love sharing my stories of how I overcame the vast majority of 5.2 million dollars in debt because we were a victim of commercial fraud when I was 30 and realized, without keeping our word, no matter what - we can never hope to have ongoing success, peace of mind and a real deep sense of purpose in life.  

This experience is where I acquired the knowledge that without a spiritual foundation under us, it is challenging to navigate the often reefs that populate our lives.  My three books, Survival: Transforming Childhood Trauma, Success: Reflections on Money, Sex, and Power, and Serenity: Aging With Dignity, Living With Grace are all constructed on the architecture of the 8 Steps of the Master Mind created by the late Jack Boland, a Unity Minister. From my early years, I have used spiritual principles as my primary GPS to guide my life to where it is today.

Last, I feel so grateful and blessed to be able to share how after suffering a catastrophic brain injury at 59, that through the miracles of modern medicine and a brilliant physician who dealt with brain injuries I was able to reclaim my life. Initially, I lost 80% of my memory, had to temporarily shut down my production company and lost just about everything one would consider worthwhile in life.  A surgeon said in his estimation the chances of my recovery would have been about 2%.  Given the size of our aging population, this is a message that resonates with a good number of people.

I was born in Timmins Ontario and raised in Toronto.  I first moved to Los Angeles when I was in my teens to become a record producer with my oldest friend John Brower.  After returning to Toronto, I married my childhood sweetheart, and we had two children.  That is when I worked for a Montreal Brokerage Firm and then the two Canadian Insurance companies.  Three years later I became President of ASK Corporation where we brought Earl Nightingale to Toronto and assisted companies with motivational and inspirational programs produced by Nightingale Conant Corporation.

After my first marriage ended, I enrolled at Humber College where I studied Journalism for two years.  I would go onto my undergraduate and graduate studies in Communication Theory and Political Economy at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver BC.  

I was hired by the Chair of the Department at Simon Fraser to be his Teaching Assistant and during this period was involved in the first two film projects of my career.  I would finance the completion of my new Business Partner's film Nails that was nominated in 1980 for an Academy Award, and then Executive Produce The Grey Fox, which was nominated in 1982/83 for two Golden Globe Nominations.  Best Foreign Picture and Best Actor for the late Richard Farnsworth.  It was presented by Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Studios.

I then moved to Los Angeles and New York City where we developed and put together a number of feature film projects culminating in Dixie Lanes.  In Toronto, I met my second wife and together we had two children who have now followed in their parent's footsteps.  

For the past 38 years, I've been the President of three successful films and television production and one distribution company.  During this period we've produced approximately one hundred and thirty series, episodes of the award winning prime time drama, comedy, and 60-hours of documentaries for a number of US, Canadian and International broadcasters.  During this time I returned to York University in Toronto and completed my MFA and also taught there and Ryerson University for over a decade.