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Born the youngest of five, Bob spent an idyllic childhood in Fairview Heights, Illinois, reading comic books, drawing cartoons and watching way too much TV. It was a very Mayberry existence, with bike rides to the ice-cream shop, church socials and heated wiffleball games in the front yard.
Bob’s first jobs in high school were a paper route and a part-time job at a donut shop.
It was during his first stint in college, studying Art & Design at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale that Bob discovered Rock n’ Roll. Traveling around the Midwest, singing with his band, Bob feels very fortunate to have been schooled in the College of Life. Much of this experience has shaped his life in ways that a University could never have done.
After years of performing and playing original music, Bob returned to college. He earned his BFA in Graphic Design at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville in 1995. Now finally armed with a proper sheepskin, Bob set about working in the field of graphic design.
Jobs along the way were a very happy association with the St. Louis-based Signature Design, whose clients included Monsanto, and the USPS, and many placements through Creatives-On-Call with companies such as Mallinckrodt Medical, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Sporting News and many others.
Along the way, Bob developed his software skills in Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and others.
In 1998, Bob went to work for the Waylon Company, a well-known promotions agency in downtown St. Louis. Starting in the print-production department, Bob became well-versed in the development of marketing materials, POP and the like. Over time, he displayed the range of skills that eventually led to his transition into the New Media group, where his team developed websites and other materials for clients such as Anheuser-Busch (including Budweiser, and SeaWorld), Coca-Cola, Sargento and many others. Waylon was bought and merged into Momentum in 2001.
As the economy shifted and Momentum felt growing pains, the axe fell on many of Bob’s good friends and coworkers, and eventually upon Bob himself. Fortunately his web and design skills enabled him to continue working for a range of freelance clients, including Mimaki USA (an offshoot of a Japanese manufacturer of large-format print and cutting plotters) and Datajacks, an Illinois-based tech-services company.
So what’s next? Who knows. Presently Bob is still designing, still rocking, and looking for that Next Big Break that will lead to another happy association on his continuing career path.
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