No, that's not me in the picture below ....

But look closely and you can see me at work, on assignment, in the Backcountry of Grand Canyon National Park ....

Growing up, I assumed every family had a refrigerator in the basement filled with film. I assumed also that every basement was equipped with a darkroom. At 7 traveled to Mexico, recording the adventure with a Nikkormat 35mm SLR. At 11 I traveled to France. Again, the trusty Nikkormat traveled along. High School years found my family in New Hampshire. The surroundings were so appealing that I stuck around and attended the University of New Hampshire. I enjoyed my classes at UNH's Whittemore School of Business, and the classes I took from the Psychology and Statistics departments.

As 1983, and the end of my B.S. program approached, I felt intellectually unfulfilled. For reasons that now escape me, a Ph. D. program in marketing promised exactly the challenge I sought. Next thing I knew, I was enrolled in the Marketing Ph. D. Program at the University of Cincinnati. At UC I met Susan, my spouse of 10 years, and earned my Ph.D. (1987). I taught a year at Miami University of Ohio while putting the finishing touches on my dissertation and while Susan geared up her dissertation.

In Fall 1987 the marketing department at Arizona State University hired us both. Sue and I, along with our two cats Winnifred and Polka, moved to Arizona in the Summer of 1988. Tempe greeted us with a string of 120 degree days. (Yes, Harriet, Tempe really is Hell on Earth!) At ASU I taught undergraduate Consumer Behavior, a Doctoral Seminar on Multivariate Statistics, mentored a number of Ph. D. Students, and published a number of papers. I received the Ferber Award. This recognizes the best inter-disciplinary dissertation based article published in the Journal of Consumer Research. Also during this period I began developing the framework for the identity based model of consumption behavior. This fertile framework has motivated my academic and consulting research ever since.

We traveled extensively throughout Arizona. I developed a love of desert hiking and of backpacking in the remote corners of Grand Canyon National Park. I became manager of Compuserve's new Camping Forum in 1995, a position I still hold today. The births of Kelsey and Emily, our two girls, were the highlights of our years in Arizona. Oh, and we gained Elizabeth, cat number three. The female-male ratio in our household became 6-to-1.

In the Summer of 1996 we moved back to Ohio so Sue could begin her new job at Bowling Green State University. With this move, my responsibilities shifted. For example, I ...

• Cultivated my activities as a marketing consultant servicing a select client list. Operating as Kleine & Associates, we specialize in continuity programs based upon the consumer identity model (see Symbolic Consumer Behavior for some elements of this model). Currently, we are migrating these programs to internet/web-based delivery.
• Became a freelance scholar pursuing my ivory tower research agenda,
• Emerged as a freelance writer providing material to the photo press (see my photo articles),
• Expanded my stock photography business.

Most important of all, I am now ...

• A full-time parent. This past year I was president of the PTA at the girl's school.

So there you have it. I'm just your normal guy who has progressed from care free kid, blessed with a manual Nikkormat Ftn 35mm SLR with a single Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens, to your ordinary married guy with an elaborate Canon EOS 35mm camera system, who takes care of two kids, does ivory tower academic research without the benefit of the ivory towers, is facile with multivariate statistics, does marketing consulting, and makes a mean pesto sauce.