About Jim - K5ND

Retired publishing executive, freelance writer, and amateur radio enthusiast.

I retired as Director of Communication Services at the national office of the Boy Scouts of America. My work there was in publishing and communication. My passions include amateur radio and Scouting.

Amateur Radio

In the early 1960s, my Dad purchased an antique, roughly 1940s era, Philco console radio. It had a shortwave band and a pretty good built-in loop antenna. I discovered HCJB in Quito, Ecuador, and was hooked on the magic of radio.

Morse code, however, with the vinyl records of the time, completely eluded me. The theory was fine, but I just could not get the code. I did continue with shortwave listening and really enjoyed collecting QSL cards from around the world. Nearby is an image of the Popular Electronics Shortwave Monitor certificate I picked up in the mid-1960s.

After my U.S. Air Force stint, I ended up in Merriman, Nebraska, where a kind ham helped me with the code and gave me the exam for the Conditional Class License since we were well over 125 miles from an FCC examination location. My first call sign was WBØJXY in 1973. My activities were a few CW contacts, building some gear, and experimenting with 2-meter quad antennas.

On moving to Michigan and working for Heathkit, I traveled to the Chicago FCC office and took the exam for Advanced Class. With that, my new call sign was KB8CE in 1978. At that time, my activities were RTTY with teletype machines.

After a long hiatus, I passed the Extra Class exam in 2006 and managed to snag the call sign K5ND. My early activity was running QRP CW and then entering a few contests, mostly to chase DX. That transitioned to an entirely new approach to RTTY and contesting. Right now, I’m focused on VHF-UHF contesting as a rover as well as satellite operations.

Scouting Volunteer

I’ve been delighted to mix both amateur radio and Scouting in my volunteer roles.

I’ve been honored to serve as Chairman of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Radio Scouting Committee from 2011 to 2017, as Chair of the BSA JOTA Task Force in 2018, as the President of the K2BSA Amateur Radio Association from 2012 through 2019, and as a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement’s Jamboree on the Air and Jamboree on the Internet Team from 2014 to 2018. I also served at the 2013 and 2017 National Jamborees leading the K2BSA operation, as well as the 2019 World Scout Jamboree leading the NA1WJ amateur radio operation.

In my amateur radio and Scouting work, I’ve been recognized with the ARRL Amateur Radio Service to Scouting Award. It’s a great honor to be recognized for the work I’ve been fortunate enough to do over the years in this area. Thank you, ARRL.

It was also nice to be featured in the ARRL Member Spotlight – K5ND – November 2018 QST. Click on the link for a PDF version.

I hope you’re able to get involved in JOTA-JOTI on the third weekend of October – the largest Scouting event in the world. Perhaps you can also get engaged with Scouting as a radio merit badge counselor or in the many other aspects of Scouting.

Career

Way back in 1968, I graduated from Omaha North High School and entered the U.S. Air Force, training and working as an avionics technician. I also took home study courses and passed the FCC 1st Class Radio Telephone License exam when I turned 20. This was my “ticket” to my career goal of broadcasting when I left the Air Force.

I was very fortunate to land a job as a television transmitter engineer with the Nebraska Educational Television Network, first at KRNE-TV in Merriman, then at KLNE-TV in Holdrege, and finally at the studios in Lincoln. All the while, I was taking home study courses at Capitol Radio Engineering Institute (CREI) and taking college credit exams at the New York Institute of Technology.

In 1975 I began teaching electronics at Southeast Community College and was promoted to Supervisor of the program in 1976. My first class as an instructor was actually the first college class I’d ever attended. But via home study and testing, I had 60 semester hours of college credit in electronics and math — and of course, I’d attended many classrooms over the years.

I launched my freelance writing career in 1976 with my first book and magazine articles published by Wayne Green, W2NSD, and his 73 Magazine. Following this early success, my first full-time publishing job was with Heathkit in 1977, writing their home study course for the General Class Amateur Radio License Exam.

My move to Heathkit was the result of answering an advertisement seeking “a combination of Hemingway and Marconi” to write self-instruction materials. That matched up perfectly with my teaching, freelance writing, education, experience, and ham radio.

While at Heathkit for 11 years, I wrote courses and moved into editorial and management positions, with my last three years spent as the product line manager for educational products. This was an interesting time at Heath as their personal computer business grew from roughly $100,000 in annual revenue to $2 billion. That meant that most manufacturing for education products had to be done in the Far East since our own plant was focused on building computers.

While at Heath, I also took advantage of their tuition assistance program, completing a Bachelor of Applied Science in Electronics Technology at Siena Heights College and an M.A. in Management at Nazareth College. Completing these degrees signaled my move from technical manager to executive leadership.

Leaving Michigan, I moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and took up the position of corporate director of education for Texas Education Corporation. They ran 20+ technical schools focused on building student skills and finding them good jobs. I also ran their small publishing program.

After a year there, I joined FlightSafety, the aviation training company, first as a training development program director and then as general manager of their Instructional Systems Division. While there, I earned an MBA in Finance from Dallas Baptist University.

In 1992, I began work at the Boy Scouts of America’s National Headquarters as director of electronic publishing — running an internal agency that focused on all materials from the Boy Scout Handbook to merit badge pamphlets to brochures and posters. My tenure included building their first websites and initiating their first internal communications operation. As noted above, I retired in 2013 after 21 years.

From 2013 through 2018, I “re-wired” rather than retired with a career encore in freelance writing, which included ghostwriting everything from blogs to books. You can find out more along with a small writing portfolio at PathForeWord. I still do freelance writing projects from time to time.

2018 brought my career to a full 50 years. I thought that was a good enough time to step back. But after roughly a year, I moved back into freelance writing and am still doing fairly well with ghostwriting blog articles, developing infographics, as well as a few odds and ends.

At some point, I’ll step back. But not yet.

If this hasn’t been enough background, you can listen to my interview with Eric Guth, 4Z1UG, at QSO Today.