B.S. in Resources Management
I live in Gardner, Kansas, which is near Kansas City, Missouri, and have been happily married to my wife, Debbie Sull, for 26 years. We have a fat and very spoiled Maine coon cat, Monica.
After graduation, I worked for the Boy Scouts of America as a district scout executive in Chemung County, New York. During this time I became interested in calligraphy as a hobby and was very fortunate to meet two elderly gentlemen who were Master Penmen. One of these men, 90 year-old Paul O’Hara, was at that time (1979) one of the last living recognized Master Penmen from the period known as America’s Golden Age of Penmanship (1850-1925). It was he who certified me as a Master Penman in 1981. That same year, I was hired by Hallmark Cards in Kansas City as a staff lettering artist.
In 1986, I left Hallmark and started my own business, the Lettering Design Group. My focus from my mentors was to bring back our American heritage of penmanship. Calligraphy was popular, but all the lettering styles were primarily European in origin. My skills and enthusiasm increased as the years went by and I was fortunate to accomplish the goal of reintroducing and popularizing American Penmanship. I initiated many teaching programs, wrote five books on penmanship and handwriting, and founded America’s only permanent recognition of our penmanship: the Spencerian Monument for American Handwriting in Geneva, Ohio.
For two years I served as calligrapher for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, writing the nomination certificates for the Academy Awards, and from 1990-2003, I was former President Ronald Reagan’s personal calligrapher. Since 2010, I have been the corporate Master Penman for the Zaner-Bloser Company. To date I have personally taught in over 40 states and in 18 foreign countries. My penmanship art is in collections worldwide, including the famous International Museum of Contemporary Calligraphy in Moscow, where I taught in 2017. My efforts to promote American Penmanship have been recognized throughout the world, and two of my penmanship instruction books have been translated into the Mandarin language. I am regarded as “the man who saved American Penmanship.”
I refer to myself as “semi-retired” since I closed my commercial studio of 35
years in 2020, but I still do private commissions and although my foreign venues have been postponed due to Covid, I travel to eight fountain pen shows each year, teaching and selling my books and supplies as a vendor. I am currently working on the manuscript for my new book on advanced penmanship techniques. In this digital age, it is important to me to share the knowledge that handwriting is still an important life skill that fosters cognitive and muscular development in children, and serves us all as a vital medium to share one’s thoughts, emotions, and knowledge as the most natural form of visible language.
Aside from penmanship, my hobbies are flower gardening, pipe collecting, pipe smoking, and being a blood donor. I started donating blood in 1971 and to date have donated over 36 gallons of whole blood, plasma, and platelets.
ESF as an educational institution means a great deal to me. My years as a student, which were during the Vietnam and Cold Wars, helped me immensely to become a responsible adult. Through the interactions with our professors and fellow students, I learned to respect each individual and our dependence on Mother Earth. Their guidance and friendship became cherished associations to me, and have remained so throughout my life. Although I did not pursue a career in forestry, the values of knowledge and respect I learned during my four years at ESF have been references for living that have never left me.