About Greg
What makes a person a writer?
For me, it might have been implanted from a love of reading when I was ten. Back in the 1960’s, my father introduced me to science fiction, westerns, mystery novels and poetry. This included the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, and other writers of bygone eras. I also read a lot of Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Frank Herbert. This greatly expanded my vocabulary and my imagination.
Perhaps it helped that I was the fourth of four children. I learned to observe at a very young age by watching what my sister and brothers did that got them in trouble. Everyone thought I was such a well-behaved child, but the reality was I had learned how to hide most everything that would get me in trouble. Observing is another good habit for a writer.
I was also influenced by my family who were all big into DIY projects and how to be self- sufficient that included reading many personal self-improvement books. Those books increased my self-awareness and introspection that generated further confidence with writing.
What was my earliest writing? When I was nineteen and drifting a bit, I started journaling about my life and other introspective thoughts. In terms of pure writing, a few poems were written, the shortest of which became a guide for my life.
Dreams and fantasies . . .
Truths and realities . . .
May my life always be such.
True fantasies, not just dreamless realities.
I love how poetry enables the writer to express ideas in the fewest words possible. Each line can impart an entirely separate thought in the reader’s mind, promoting a pause to internalize what is written.
When I wrote that short poem, I was entering my third year of a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture at Virginia Tech. It was my advent into becoming a designer by trade. But I was already a designer of my life through observation, introspection, DIY, self-help, and self- awareness.
Oh, and that design included the United States Marine Corps Reserves when I was 19. I was aware that I needed more self-discipline if I were ever to put my designs into action. It was just a bit ironic becoming a combat engineer who could fell trees with explosives to block enemy advances while I was going to school to become a landscape architect. Nevertheless, the Marine Corps helped me mature and gave depth to my life that had been far more about play than work.
Like many people in college, I had to get school loans and worked through parts of college. As a design choice, I worked at places that would give me some level of experience in my design field. I worked as a lighting application engineer (fancy title) for Hubbell Lighting designing how sites and buildings could be illuminated for their sales staff. I also worked for a time with a design/build landscaping company giving me hands-in-the-dirt experience seeing how landscape design translated through construction. Little did I know that both of those experiences would gain me a role l needed later in life.
Also like many young people, my first job out of college was away from my home state. This was when I really started to understand what I was capable of and what I stood for. That first job was in Charlotte, NC for a firm known as DPR and Associates. The principals of the company, Lee McLaren and Tom Duggins, were two landscape architects from the University of Georgia who were the perfect complement to each other. Both were great at design, but Tom was detailed and contract oriented, whereas Lee would throw a project at me to figure out on my own, giving input only as he saw I might need it. Young people need both, a chance to learn how to fly while learning how to do so by not overlooking the details that make things work. At DPR, I learned to design any type of development including industrial and office parks, commercial sites, all types of residential development, and recreational parks. In terms of detail, I prepared the site construction drawings for the entire block of the sixty-story Bank of America building and its related plaza in downtown Charlotte.
All of my employers recognized a hunger within me for more. My supervisor at Hubbell Lighting, Charlie Franks, introduced me into Toastmasters International to develop my public speaking skills, and he gave me the role of preparing the monthly program of speakers for the Illuminating Engineering Society meetings. Charlie set me on a path for success at a critical point in my life.
At DPR, Lee told me to attend a community meeting for him that was organizing a citizens group to make a new sign ordinance politically feasible. Somehow my willingness to speak up resulted in being asked to lead the group. That was a fight I led for two years that resulted in Charlotte stemming the tide of billboard installation and other large signage that had negatively impacted the visual character of Charlotte/Mecklenburg. What did I learn from that? That a young person with relatively little experience can be accepted as a leader. For two years, I had no idea the people I was calling were top CEO’s of leading businesses in Charlotte waiting to know what to say and when to make a call to get the legislation one step closer to approval. It was another experience that would lead to a later role in my life.
By the time I was 31, I was able to buy my first house. A starter home of 1200 square feet in the Chantilly neighborhood that needed a lot of DIY attention. As an inner-city neighborhood of 650 homes, the area was also impacted by crime and an adult bookstore. There was no organized crime-watch or homeowner’s association, so I decided to start a free volunteer association to try and develop interest. I got to know the neighborhood quite well as I wrote and delivered a monthly two-page newsletter to all the homes. I soon had enough other young people interested that wanted to help. The focus we brought to bear on the adult bookstore saw its closure within a year’s time thanks to the Charlotte City Council and the Charlotte Police Department. That success led to five years of neighborhood improvements including new sidewalks and street trees, and a new park on some wasted land along a creek.
My endeavors in citizen advocacy in Charlotte led to my selection into Class XIII of Leadership Charlotte promoting the highest ideals of citizen engagement in the Charlotte/Mecklenburg community.
That was when tragedy struck one of my heroes, my sister Bobbie. She was the most capable person I ever knew to do anything she wanted. She designed her life to become the best (yes, she was competitive, but nice about it.) She won the first Richmond marathon and once held the US women’s record for the 100-mile run in 22 hours and 45 minutes. She competed with the Richmond Ski Club and Richmond Tennis Club, and she rebuilt two old houses, one a cabin that included building an attached greenhouse. My parents eventually built a cabin connected to hers as she would care for them in their old age. At age 48, Bobbie died from lung cancer caused by extensive smoking even though she had quit several years earlier.
As the remaining unmarried member of the family, I picked up my life in Charlotte and sought a move to Richmond to care for my parents despite the economic downturn in the early 1990’s. My last hope after six months of searching was an opening in Chesterfield County, Virginia. The opening was for a senior planner to oversee review of new development. What I did not know was that the person hiring for the position, Kirk Turner, did not want anyone from private practice. He wanted a seasoned planner already experienced in public practice. Yet he saw things in my application that warranted an interview.
In the end, Kirk said it was my breadth of experience that convinced him to give me a chance. Experience in site lighting, landscaping, signage, the full range of site design and engineering, understanding construction of the built environment, and lastly, extensive experience in working with HOA’s and citizen groups who would engage the county about new development. The design choices for my life through age thirty-six paid off at the crucial time.
Over the thirty years I worked in that role, the director, Tom Jacobson, and then Kirk Turner after Tom, gave me extensive latitude to keep updating the zoning ordinance to improve the quality of development we achieved in Chesterfield County that addressed architecture, landscaping, lighting, signage, bikeways, and overall site design. Much of the work was done with committees of citizens and representatives of the development industry, and I always included people on the committees with the most divergent opinions.
That was many years of negotiating, at times even brinkmanship, bringing people of strong opinions together to improve what was being built. All positive changes happen through people who take the time to understand why something needs changing.
So, I say life experiences and a poem turned me into a writer. Admittedly, the story about Charlie Martin as The Designer came about from a strong dream where I saw the character, heard his name, and understood his parallel assassin role as a landscape architect. I wrote a draft of the first few chapters by getting up at four in the morning before I lost the dream.
Many writers will say their first book contains autobiographical information about the author. That is true for me in The Designer.
I am focused now on the next true fantasy. Help me turn the Transform Coalition into a reality. Let me know of non-fiction writers who are also promoting ways to achieve a better future for humankind and the earth. I want to offer them through fiction a way to further promote their vision.
Thanks for reading this short story about what enabled me to become a writer. Some of you may have wished for some background on loves lost and gained, but that is indeed its own separate story.
