Tim grew up on two and a half acres in a middle class family in northern Illinois near the three television stations. Rockford’s huge manufacturing base provided job longevity for both his parents. Steamy summers were spent playing baseball in the horse pastures and motorcycle riding alongside the drive-in movie theater. Winters were harsh, but tobogganing among the pines and behind our horse riding through the windy cornfields filled the space between shoveling waist high snow and hot chocolate.

Tim was raised surrounding by predominately Baptist sermons. Many of his Dad’s Virginia-based family stool behind the pulpit every Sunday morning with the Bible in one hand and a ready handkerchief in the other. Tim took a bit of a sabbatical from those heated deliveries until he met his wife Sandy in the mid 80’s. He has been a card carrying, cookie eating United Methodist ever since.

In 1977, a dormant high school radio station was yearning to be revived so Tim and his buddies stepped up and named it WARQ. Ironically, Mike Lamb (the founder of Arizona’s SKY7 radio) helped this crew of teens without even a second of pause for thought. Mike was a highly rated nighttime DJ on WROK at the time and known as Shotgun Mark Rivers. This inspired Tim to start a professional career in radio spanning ten years at WLUV, WKDI, WFRL, WROK, WZOK, WKAZ AND WVSR.

Tim’s love for logos and promotional products led him to serving as the Promotions Director at many of these stations. This path, along with being on-the-air, automatically forced him to observe what most might ignore and to connect the dots for something new. Co-founding Skyward Promotions in 1987 was the perfect door as an exit from the radio business. Skyward later joined American Solutions for Business in 2014 and there he completed his advertising career in 2017 serving as their National Creative Editor through his idea sharing portal Promote with Purpose.

Using props for his conversations around the campfires as a Boy Scout leader became a necessity in his mind. “It’s one thing to get your point across in the moment. It’s another to figure out a way to help the meaning stick with them.”  Promotional product props served him well in the business Lunch & Learn classes held annually. He saw it as a personal challenge to push the connection to the edge of understanding. Tim has also been a keynote speaker for Keep Northern Illinois Beautiful of Rockford, Illinois and the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

And that brings us to today. Tim is the SKY7 internet radio weekday midday host on the Variety Channel. His Things to Think About segments are just that… random thought prompting sixty seconds or so items for everyone to consider at least for one minute or two or three or more. Admittedly, Tim hopes “Either my timing or the topic is perfect for what’s happening in a listener’s life.  His first book, Things to Think About for at Least 1 Minute, is a collection of these snippets. His second book, The Comings & Goings of T-shirts, puts on paper what many would love to print on cotton and prance right into the ideal audience. The front phrase can certainly stand alone as could the back, but putting them together hopefully creates a giggle. His third book, The Power of Props, lays out fifty life lessons and how a physical item can help bring the point home. All are available from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.