JOBS LIST - the long list

All the way back

These are in Reverse Chronological Order, in so far as that is possible. Some jobs and periods of self-employment overlap. Some change their nature between part time, full time and contract. I also don't know whether some entities exist anymore. Some, I know, went out of business or changed hands or names. Others certainly changed people.

Mike Strong
5921 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110

Phones:
816-444.4459 (land)
816-674-1133 (cell)

EMails:
dancer@kcdance.com
strongm@umkc.edu
MikeStrongPhotoVid@gmail.com (best)

Mike Strong - KC Dance Information

Self: Freelance
Current

This takes us back to the KCDance.Com website and to my dance coverage and online calendar for dance events. I also run ongoing work with various jobs as they occur to either to videography or photography, almost all in dance, through KC Dance Information.

My own work:
My main site for dance information community resource: http://www.kcdance.com
My ePortfolio, galleries, CV, etc: http://www.MikeStrongPhoto.com

This includes the numerous activities for companies and events I shoot. Notable are those I’ve spent so very much time working for, on a regular basis, across the years, Wylliams-Henry Contemporary Dance Company, UMKC Dance Division, UMKC Conservatory, City in Motion, Traditional Music Society, Soundz of Africa, Camelot Ballroom, Kansas City Ballet, Culture Through Ballroom Dance, JCCC Performing Arts, American Youth Ballet, Dance On (interview show), Kansas City Friends of Alvin Ailey and the Ailey visiting companies and Dancerz Unlimited.

Because I am the main reference for myself at the KCDance listing, please visit the sites above for your own take. The KCDance.com location will show you the work across a time but was never designed to provide a good way of examining my work. It is a semi-journalistic effort and donation to the community. The MikeStrongPhoto.com site, of which this page is part, provides a way of looking at my work across time and categories as well as various detailed documents about work I've done and who I've worked for. These were originally created as references in lieu of degrees in the field.

 

University of Missouri at Kansas City

PACE (Program for Adult College Education)

5100 Rockhill Road
PACE Office, 104 Scofield Hall Kansas City, MO 64114
816-235-1588
Supervisor: Reggie Bassa
From March 1, 2003 through Summer 2018 - (second time at UMKC - via a request to provide a database course using MS Access)

PACE was shuttered in the summer of 2018 as the result of an attack on the program, through Devon Cancela, hired academic hitman, who then left to take a job with the accreditation company he suckered UMKC into paying for. His assistant Melissa (without whom he was technically incompetent) got out of Dodge by going to Rockhurst. This was with other departments who wanted to kill PACE, seeing it as a competitor for online courses, even though PACE had been around for decades. At first I thought he was out for myself and Nicole. But then, little by little it became obvious he was out to cut PACE. When Reggie developed a brain tumor in 2017 and was replaced with a fill-in PACE was shut down.

I started with the PACE program at UMKC by picking up a web-taught database course they needed right away. They just lost an instructor. I developed my own curriculum and my own teaching technologies for this course based around early concepts of what used to be called "programmed learning."

This site (at ArtfulDancer.com) has now been replaced by a BlackBoard implementation but you can still see it pretty much as it operated at: http://www.MikeStrongPhoto.com/lessons.

Included in the technology (delivered via ASP and PHP at the server) is a Javascript quiz/exam application. This is designed not just to trip up students but to serve as a teaching machine, drilling students until they get the answers right, with the ability to switch over to an exam machine when ready. Use "astudent" (username) and "astudent" (password) to login as "Annie Student" in order to try out the quizzes

Alternately you can see classes in development here (these classes may not be complete or fully updated, depending on when they were moved elsewhere to finish development)
Multimedia, Web Design, 105 Introduction, 106 Concepts, or the testbed template

I and my partner, Nicole English, pitched and developed additional courses in video non-linear editing, website construction, web writing and media streaming. The video courses is designed for low-cost access to students who do not have access to a lab and are taking the course from their homes or offices where they have Windows software on desktop or laptop.

American Crane & Tractor Parts Inc.

2200 State Line Road
Kansas City, KS 66103
913-371-8585
www.actparts.com

From June 2001 through March 14, 2003

Web Programmer and documentation writer for e-Commerce

Extensive work on e-commerce at the international warehouse level running IIS with ASP and Sql Server running together to generate daily orders from resellers anywhere from several line items to several thousand line items per order, rather than the more typical shopping-cart applications. When I was brought on board consultants were about to sign-off on a large revision of their warehouse system. This includes consideration for alternate part numbers, different warehouses, shipping consolidation to minimize costs and international shipping documents. The system generated web traffic which was too large and slow for their customers across the world. I reduced the traffic to eight and a half percent of the size. This helped but more was needed. I then designed a light front end running at the client side which again dramatically reduced traffic loading.

In addition I re-did the front-end general company web site for both external use and internal use, including a simple company-wide help documentation system. The company system includes administrative maintenance tools for many of the database and text-based changeable items. The last task I left before finishing the assignment was to re-design the company's front-end web site complete with multi-lingual capabilities and with an administrative interface. The admin interface allows the web-master to add help files, to catalog the flyer archive for use on the web, and to keep track of the current status of all translations on the site. Along with this was an email generator which allowed their marketing person to create and send HTML email flyers to a list and to keep a record of responses and then add those flyers to the archive.

University of Missouri at Kansas City

Computer Science Telecommunications Program

BIT - Bachelor of Information Technology program

5100 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64114
816-235-2349
Supervisor: Ken Blundell, chair

From March 1999 through December 31, 2000 - (first time at UMKC - the position came from a grant which lasted through December 2000)
Research Assistant and Lecturer

Web design, web maintenance, web creation, programming in support of the web site, data administration for web courses, tutorials and documentation.

With work partner Nicole English we put together the BIT (Bachelor of Information Technology) web site which initiated this degree program entirely on the web. We also designed, put together and team taught the IT-222 Multimedia course starting in the winter of 2000 with some 30+ students in the first semester and growing to 80 student by the third semester and 90 at the start of 2001. We developed this using great ingenuity because we we given neither software nor hardware support. IT-222 was taught by us both in the classroom and on the web.

This ended at the end of 2000 when the grant finished.

Preco Industries, Inc.

9705 Commerce Parkway
Lenexa, KS 66219
913-541-0066

Contract vendor from October 1988
Full time June 1992 - October 1998
Contract vendor from late 1989
Supervisor: Evelyn Miller, under Tim Burns

Various Jobs over time:
Programmer
Tech rep
Programmer-to-real-people liaison (phone help)
Technical documentation (i.e. software manual)
Database Analyst
 
I originally began work in late 1989 as a contractor cleaning up their sales database. (It was in Smart II.) Then I wrote the manual for the second version of AutoScript (named AutoScript 5). AutoScript converts AutoCAD drawings into PostScript so that the technical drawings (blueprints, mechanical drawings) can be brought into publications for pre-press use. I used Ventura Publisher and designed the entire book, the layout, typeface, styles, table of contents, index, tutorial and all the illustrations.

Later, because I could act as intermediary between the programmers and "real" people I began to suggest internal program changes. In June 1992 I was hired as a salaried full-time employee. I then bcame the programmer for the third version (named AutoScript 6). This is in Windows (3.xx, 95 and NT 4.0). This version also gives an on screen preview, direct windows printing and separations and dozens of further enhancements. During most of a three-year period I worked from my home. This was until their new building was contructed in 1997.
 
The work with AutoScript involved computer languages: C and C++ at a maintenance level, intense Visual Basic including Windows' 16-bit and 32-bit GDI API graphics, Sequiter database API technology, extensive interface design, project design, AutoCad internal drawing database, AutoCad's AutoLISP language, color theory, pre-press knowledge, and more.
 
This job ended in October 1998 when they decided to discontinue the AutoScript division and perhaps sell it. I still do contract work with them for other things they need, such as producing the computer graphics to give them film so that they can make customer-sample screens for the web-fed screen print press they manufacture.

 

Sports Photographers Plus

Olathe, KS
913.829.0613

shooter July 1990 - late 1994
Owners: Jim Seers and Terry Heffer

Photographer

Shooting groups and individuals for schools and youth sports leagues during those "picture days"
you may be familiar with as a customer. This is very demanding work under considerable pressure. It requires a good deal of organizational ability to make sure that groups are arranged consistently well and that individual from each group get decent pictures. Each package is very low cost and therefore each shot really needs to count. You are normally working with large numbers of high-spirited kids and anxious parents who are looking over your shoulder, dancing around everywhere and attempting to stage direct, especially for their own little ones. I like it.
 
I worked with Jim and Terry when we were all employees of Adams/Associated (see below). They left and later started their own sports photographers outfit. I worked for them on a fairly regular basis part-time until late 1994 (depending on their need for photographers on various jobs). I had already been cutting down the amount of time I worked with them as the time demand at Preco increased. By late 1994 there was just not enough time left to do both and so I stopped accepting assignments from SPP.
 

Adams Photographic

(then a division of Associated Photographers)
Shawnee Mission, KS
913-362-9015

May/June 1989 - July 1990
Supervisor: Diana Hanline
$10/hr or $11/hr (with my equipment) or $8/hr for lab work

1 - contract photographer (under my own freelance arrangement, see below) then in September as
2 - Black and White lab technician and printer working to start up first Black and White lab section. This meant starting the equipment, getting a production line going and establishing times, costs and prices. Adams Photographic / Creative Images was their school-photography arm (shooting pictures) while Associated Photographers was their major color lab (processing school photo packages from their own photographers and photographers across the country). It was run by Mike and Diana Hanline. They went out of business in 1990. Interstate Color Services of Sedalia, Missouri bought their facilities keeping the Associated name for several years then changing it to School Photographer Group, Inc.

 

Freelance Plus (me again)

(self employment)

September 1988 - 1996 (give or take)

Photography, writing, programming.

This was when I pulled the equipment out of storage in earnest to once more shoot pictures and, I  hoped, write stories. This was also a direct commitment to produce computer programs for businesses and to update and publish my utilities program set for Microsoft Quick BASIC. The sales tax license had been kept since my Grandview days and a Kansas City occupation license was been added. When I moved to Kansas those changed to Kansas licenses which I got rid of in 1997.
 
I did not do lab work except for myself and on special occasion for Jim Seers (with his own outfit). I shot various ads, usually location shots of businesses with the owners' pictured in or in front of their places. I shot commercial catalog type pictures for brochures and pamphlets.

 

The Kansas City Club

1228 Baltimore Kansas City, MO 64105
816-421-6789, ext 2736 (ext 2736 is athletics)

27 Jun 87 - 22 Nov 89
Supervisor: Bob Walden
$5.25 hour plus 50% commission

Left to pursue my further college education and to focus on additional work with Adams Photographic in starting their Black and White processing division for their overall owner, Associated Photographers, Inc. Helped in choosing my successor and left knowing the job was in good hands. (ha)
 
Certified Massage Therapist for the club utilizing Swedish, Sportsmassage and Trager techniques. The massage operation was part of the sports department. I introduced music, low lighting and one-hour massages (they had been 15-minute massages). The men's massage was in the men's locker room and the women's massage was in a separate hotel room in the building.
 

Electronic Office Systems

3855 S. Northern St., Independence, MO 64052

1987-92 - part time, contractor
Instructor: computer courses

These were pre-packaged programs from AT&T training in Denver taught in a two or three day seminar format, mostly for AT&T employees.
The seminars had three sections:
1) a lock-step set of exercises, then
2) a monitored set of specified exercises and
3) finally an open project based on what they just learned.

TLS (Tax Line Services)

9381 W. 75th St
Overland Park, KS 66204
913-642-1040

27 Jan 87 - 15 Apr 87
Supervisor: Lori Lowe, manager
Start=$7.50/hr. End=$8.00/hr.
Seasonal only employment (TLS was a division of TaxLine Services)

Second shift manager and computer operator on Prime 250 (mainframe) and operator of Xerox 4050 laser printer. Managed (and trained) staff of data entry operators for tax return work. Wrote training materials for data entry and also documentation for various utilities and communications operations for file transfers between local and regional office. Also wrote a shell program in Prime CPL for the data entry functions and wrote the documentation to go with it.

MetaMarketing, Inc.

10615 Winner Road
Independence, MO 64052
816-252-9288

11 Jul 83 - 8 Oct 86
Supervisor: Sandi Karas
Start=$12,000/yr. End=$17,500/yr.
Ended with ownership change to partner (Rolla Pennell bought out Gordon Heuser).
During the period the firm hired me under the following business names :Clinic Masters, Inc.; Practice Master's, Inc.; MetaMarketing, Inc.

Worked first as a meeting coordinator for Clinic Master's four day 20th Anniversary Celebration in Kansas City using both the Hyatt Regency and the Crown Center hotels. This included writing, design, layout and mailing of promotional pieces as well as arranging for both meeting rooms and blocks of hotel rooms, special rooms and reservations, menus, event schedules, party favors, drawing prizes, registrations, table flags, wines, breakfasts, transportion, award plaques and trophies, and a lot of etceteras.

This led (second) to sales demo promotional work and that led quickly to use of computers for mailing purposes. This was when the Commodore 64 first came out and broke price barriers at $600. Before long special requirements led to the need for a programmable data base and that led me into full-time programming and user support. The Commodore 64 led me to SuperBase which used a varient of BASIC to allow database programming specifically for this machine. I developed (in a mere 4,500 bytes of Basic memory) a mailing program which tracked across 80 disks and 13,500 names and separated mailings into mail sacks. Later I did the data conversion and program conversions from SuperBase to dBMAN when the use of the Commodore proved successful enough to buy some of the first PC's. We traveled to Phoenix to purchase two Zenith 8086's with incredibly huge 10-meg hard drives. Later we added more PC's and a network to connect them. I did all the work including wiring RS-232 printer cables for various printer/computer combinations.
 
During that period I was also the SuperBase expert at the Commodore User Group and gave at least one seminar (that I can remember) in SuperBase. I was already very much into user interfaces. The first programs I developed were designed to bring in temporary workers and make them productive on the first day. That meant really watching to see how my programs were seen and understood by the user. I also constructed a separate keypad just to operated the database/printer setup. The keypad hooked into the keypad connector on the Commodore and sent keystrokes for specific mailing commands. This allowed the operator to drop an envelope into the daisy-wheel printer, hit a button and print the address and advance to the next address, then repeat the operation  .
 

Self-Employed/Photo-Lab

604 B Butcher
Grandview, MO 64030
816-765-7701

Jan 79 - Jul 83
Start=$300+/mo. End=$1,100(+-)/mo.
Left for the chance to earn a paycheck provided by someone else.

Black & White Commercial Photo Lab
Started as and in-house contract operation with Ray Cockrell at 927 Central, KCMO at a time when he was taking over operation of the former Winkler Color Lab (following Winkler's death in a plane crash). Ray wanted to have a Black & White section. He had the space and I had the equipment and the B&W talent. This business moved to 18th and McGee as Cockrell Color Lab. Later I separated totally as he brought his new wife in for the Black & White section and I continued on my own in my apartment (then in Overland Park, later in Grandview) until the offer from Clinic Masters in July 1983. Macy's downtown advertising department and United Telecom's public relations department were my main customers. For Macy's I did specialist work in converting transparencies from their color catalogs into black and white internegatives and then prints for newspaper ads in seven states.

The American Restaurant

200 E 25th Street
Kansas City, MO 64127
816-471-8050

Oct 78 - May 79
Supervisor: Manfred ...
Start:$1.35/$3.90/hr. End:same
Left to give full time to photo lab

Waiter (@1.35+tips) and
Bartender (@3.90)
I moved between main bar, service bar, and, as waiter, main floor. I learned the operations for both captain (front) and waiter (back). As back I learned to send orders to fire various dishes at various times so they would all finish cooking at the same time for delivery after salads and appetizers. This work needs a quick mind and a good ability to think on your feet. As a bartender I squeezed fresh fruit each afternoon for that evenings mixes and fancy drinks such as Mai-Tai's from original recipes. More than fifteen years later, when my boss at Preco asked me to do some computer work for the River Club I ran into Bobby, one of the waiters I had worked with at the American. He I found out that he still knew me as "the shaker" because at the American I normally eschewed blenders and preferred to shake drinks by hand.

Radisson-Muehlbach Hotel

le Carroussel' Restaurant
Lobby Lounge Bar
12th and Wyandotte
Kansas City, MO 64111
816-471-1400

Sep 77 - Aug 78
Supervisor: Art Kennedy
Start:$3.65/hr End:$3.90/hr
Left for the American Restaurant

They are out of business. The building was gutted in the early 80's and the contents auctioned and otherwise sold off. There were marvelous items never to be replaced. There is now another Muehlbach there.
 
Bartender and (on a de-facto basis) assistant manager
Here I was first a bartender and then sometime maitre'd. I serviced my bar customers, my lounge and the waiters from my room as well as from other rooms in the hotel. I learned a lot about service here including the front/back/bus or captain/waiter/bus system. I also learned much about people.
 

American Bartender's Schools

El Segundo, CA
213-973-4431

May 77 - Sep 77
Start:$200/wk. End:$250/wk.
Supervisor: Jack Tiano, owner
Either American or Professional, depending on location - national chain of schools

School director (administrator) In charge of training and sales at the local school level. Became a fireman job of replacing persons who quit at various locations. Was assigned on "permanent" status first to the Los Angeles school, then the Santa Ana school, then San Diego, then Kansas City, then Detroit and back to Kansas City which I eventually closed out for them and in November (after finishing employment) physically tore down the facility (bar, parts, etc) and shipped it to the Northfield, Michigan location for them.

Seventh Spirit

Lawrence, KS

Feb 77 - May 77
$3.65/hr
Was a part-time job during school

Bartender

The Seventh Spirit was a combination private club and public venue. The bar in the basement is no long gone. The upstairs was part of a theater in which the lobby was the private club (a remnant of Carrie Nation's effect in Kansas) and the downstairs seating was a public entertainment venue.

Lawrence Journal-World

Lawrence, KS

Aug 76 - May 76
Free-lance job during school

Photographer (part time)

I used my experience on the Geneva Times to shoot pictures on a part-time basis for hire with the Journal-World. I covered a typical range of items for a daily newspaper from portraits to sports. I took pictures and developed and printed them in the newspaper's darkroom.  

KC Royals Stadium Club

Kansas City, MO

Feb 77 - Oct 77, 78
$3.85/hr
Part time job

Bartender Supervisor: Bob D'Anna

What could be better. You get to go to games for free, even if you do work had. The Stadium Club is a full service restaurant along the third base line (look at the large expanse of glass) with a long island bar at the top level and a service bar behind that. During a game the service bar could kick out some 1200 or 1400 drinks an hour.  (I don't remember the exact figure anymore). This was fancy service. Bob D'Anna's own career went all the way back to KC in the 30's and the old Hey Hay bar owned by Milton Morris. Bob started as a bar-back there and remembered actual boards across hey bales to sit on and refilling the expensive-label liquor bottles with cheap booze at the end of the night (illegal now).

Geneva Times

18 Genesee Street
Geneva, NY 14456
315-789-3333

Sep 74 - Aug 76
Supervisor: Don Hadley, editor
Start:$125/wk End:$150/wk
Left for school

Reporter/Photographer
(The Geneva Times is now The Fingerlakes Times)

Worked as an "area" reporter. My job was to develop leads and daily stories in my "area" (southern half of Seneca county). I covered all stories except sports (handled by a sports staff in Geneva). The Geneva Times was a daily (Monday through Saturday) which carried a circulation of about 18,000 in five counties.
 
This is where I credit much of any writing ability, thanks to some patient editors who nursed a broadcast writer into a print writer. I sent in stories and developed negatives every morning via a courier. I can't begin to tell you how many meetings of various boards I went to. I went to all the fires and accidents. In that area it was a neighborhood affair because everybody was on the volunteer fire department and the volunteer ambulance corps. Community policing was part of the package. It wasn't officer Favreau, it was Bob Favreau. This was genuine small town USA. It was where the fellow who moved in 25 years ago and whose children were in high school was still a new guy (even if his kids were natives). This was also farm country, lake country and New York wine country. The Fingerlakes area of upstate New York is a very beautiful area of the country.

WGVA

3568 Lenox Road
Geneva, NY 14456
315-781-1240

May 74 - Sep 74
Supervisor, Bob Michael, manager
At: $3.45/hr
Left and joined The Geneva Times.

Reporter Full news position with area coverage in and around Geneva. Was a seven day a week shift.
Did the normal police blotter assignments, courthouse coverage, wrote three short version of any story and recorded "actualities" for the next reporter. Also did DJ duties at various times and ran the board at times (such as for public-service shows including an early Salsa show on Sundays - I never did know what Kalib was saying).

WMBO/WPCX

Box 980
Auburn, NY 13021
315-253-7355

Sept 73 - May 74 (part time)
Supervisor: Bill Snee
At: $3.25/hr
Left for full time work at WGVA

Reporter/DJ Part time job while attending school, evenings and weekends.Reporting evenings and Saturdays with a DJ position on late Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. ( formerly wmbo/wrlx )
 

US Air Force

8 Nov 68 - 7 Nov 72

Left as a Staff Sergeant and with the standard honorable discharge having held two job descriptions,
1 - geodetic computer and
2 - geodetic surveyor. Geodetic surveyor included astronomic surveryor.

Geodetic/Astronomic Surveyor/ Trained originally in the Army Engineer School at Fort Belvoir, VA. From May 1969 to the end on my service I was based out of F.E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, WY as a member of the 1st Geodetic Survey squadron (It was the 1381st Geodetic Survey Squadron - 1381st GSS when I started. I forgot when the name was changed. It continues as NIMA, National Imagery & Mapping Agency).

Work consisted of computation of geodetic data, measurement of geodetic data. Most of the jobs were TDY (travel, Temporary DutY assignments) in small teams regulating the work ourselves to accomplish the job goal. We measured directions (angles), elevations, latitudes, longitudes, azimuths and gravimetric data in support of mapping, navigational and base-line purposes to accuracy requirements of class one.

 

Great Western Camera Exchange

Cheyenne, WY Supervisor:

Oct 69 - Aug 71
Jim Reineke, owner

(Went out of business)
Part time camera sales ( when I was in town between military TDY's ). This is where I first got a lot of good camera equipment. I traded cameras on TDY and re-traded them when I got back. The store sold cameras, darkroom everything and stereo equipment.
 

KTTT

1367 33rd Avenue
Columbus, NE 68601
402-564-2866

May 68 - Oct 68
Supervisor: Jim Bogus, news director
Left to enter the Air Force.

Reporter, DJ/Engineer
Took care of news reporting during the morning and in the afternoons and Sundays DJ (within programming blocks, each for different audiences) and engineering work (for other news persons and for a weekly polka show personality).
 

 

Gloor Bakery

(now out of business)
2405 13th Street
Columbus, NE 68601
402-564-7431

Sep 65 - Aug 66
Supervisor: Reinie Gloor, owner
$1.45/hr
Left to go to university.

(Reinie and his wife years later sold the business and bought a bakery in a red barn like building in Aspen, CO.)
After school and Saturdays, scrapping pots and pans. On Saturdays I got to come in very early 4 or 4:30 to load up flours and mixes and start the deep-fat donut fryer. The best part about Saturdays was the opportunity to make rolls and breads and other items. Later that school year and during the summer I made even more items as a baker's apprentice. (The apprentice work was during the mornings with pots and pans in the afternoon.) This included mixing formulas and forming breads and rolls. Reinie's folks had emigrated from Switzerland and started this business many many years prior to that. At that time his parents were both quite old (to a teenager) and were "retired" although still living above the shop. They came down the stairs every day to work in the shop.

Columbus Public Library
St. Bonaventure H.S. Library

Columbus, NE 68601

Early high school years (60-61-64/65)

Librarian: checking books in and out, shelving, re-shelving, research duties, giving help to users (my first true customer-service experience - I was very helpful), binding magazines, re-binding books, typing index cards, etc. I loved it. Books were precious to me since well before school age and still are. The smell of books and wood shelves still brings back memories.
 
The public library was a genuine original Andrew Carnegie library with fortress-thick concrete walls and faux pillers at the entrance. When I worked there they had just added a modern section which doubled the original capacity. It seemed large then. I recently went by there again. Another business now occupies the old building which looks much smaller than I once thought. The library long ago moved into larger offices in the nearby former public power building.

 

Jobs prior to libraries: