about

When I was young, I spent most of my time drawing in notebooks and writing fantastic stories about detectives, superheroes and good guys fighting crime. As I got older, I started to veer more towards art as a profession, which ended up leading me to a dead end. By the time I was in college, I was trying to figure out what “else” I could do with my life, because writing and art would never make me any money.

In 2000, I had built a custom car that my friends and I had dubbed the “Bad Apple” for its lime green hue. It caught the attention of some magazine editors, who ended up putting me on the cover of the premier issue of Import Racer! magazine. I was handed a tech sheet and told to fill it out so that they could write the story, but I had to hurry, because they were going to press soon.

The tech sheet was all about car stereos – nothing about my custom suspension or the full interior. It was still a blank piece of paper when I was done with it, so I decided to just throw it in the trash and write my own story. The worst thing he could do was throw it out, right?

That editor liked my story, and even though it wasn’t anything fancy, he did some reworking and turned it into the article that went to press. Then he said, “You know, if you want to do some more writing for me, I can send you some stuff.”

I spent the next year writing here and there for Import Racer!, which quickly turned into writing for Lowrider Euro, learning under Marco Patino. He and I became friends over the years, and he taught me things about the camera that I never would have stumbled into. My father was a photographer, and he gave me his old Nikon to practice with. I went through a lot of film, but a few of my stories actually went to press. Now Marco was referring me to other editors, and that led to leads at Lowrider, RPM, Euro Tuner, Super Street, Truckin’, Sport Truck, Street Trucks and many more. My photography and writing now appeared in several different magazines, and I was starting to make some decent money working the job just on the side. I just could never push myself to do it full time, so instead, I languished at day jobs, dreaming of the day that I would work at a magazine.

In June 2008, I got that chance, and became a copy editor for 944 magazine, where I was in charge of editing two cities. That led to three then four cities, and a year later, I was named as the executive editor of 944′s newest acquisition, Six Degrees magazine. For the next few months I was in charge of four cities, four different editors and the editorial vision of the publication, as well as doing my regular duties as a copy editor. Unfortunately, the company decided to cease publication of Six Degrees with the September issue, and once the book was completed, I was promoted to senior copy editor.

The culmination of the previous 10 years of print work and my recent experience working directly for a publication led me to a decision: take the plunge and go full time with my writing and photography, and make it a legit business. In October 2009, I formalized the business name I had been using for years, and started Whipps Industries, LLC.

What does the future hold? Who knows, really. But I’ve got a lot of plans for the company, and in the next few years, I expect things to broaden even further with more publications, more blogs and more chances to showcase my skills. If you need a hard worker, and you have a need for my skill set, drop me a line and we can go from there.

Thanks for visiting Whipps Industries.com