Following graduation, and not knowing any better, Chris headed straight to Hollywood seeking a media career. Somewhat surprisingly he found one, starting literally on the ground floor (no room for a chair) as a sound effects sorter at a small-but-popular commercial audio production studio called SSI. Chris eventually worked his way up to an engineer’s chair where he helped produce national advertising for several top ad agencies as well as TV and radio promos for CBS and NBC and sound effects tracks for numerous Saturday morning cartoon shows.

By 1977 Chris moved to Portland, Oregon where he became the head production engineer/sound designer and vice president at Spectrum Studios. His 19 years in Portland also included work at Rex Recording and Video Post and a long list of advertising awards including Clios, Addys, Rosys, Tellys, Lulus, a Sluggo and a couple Daisy Maes. Chris also wrote a top-selling book for voice actors, “Voiceovers – Putting Your Mouth Where the Money Is,” and is a founding member of a humor-based Portland ad agency called Media Rare, Inc.

In 1998, Chris decided to try something new and moved with his wife and cats to Whidbey Island. After a year of self-imposed unemployment, Chris began a four year stint as an award-winning reporter and feature writer for the Whidbey News-Times. Two consecutive, first-place awards for education reporting from the Washington State School Director’s Association, helped propel Chris to his current position as the video and broadcasting teacher at Oak Harbor High School. The fledgling media program he helped design in 2001 is now thriving with five classes a day. One, called “Monster Media,” produces Wildcat TV – a 24-hour, student-produced channel available islandwide via Comcast Cable Channel 21. Visit http://ohhs.ohsd.net/~video or http://www.wildcattv.org. Stay tuned.