EMPLOYMENT HISTORY:
     I began work in retail in 1974, at the book department of the Robert Simpson store in Toronto (now the Bay). After a year of post-graduate studies, I worked in an independent bookstore on Yonge Street, Robert Buckley’s Books. I followed that job with a year as manager for two Bluewater Books stores, in Greenwin Towers and the Sheraton Centre. In 1978, I moved to The Book Cellar and became assistant manager and buyer for their Delisle Court store. In 1979, I moved to become manager of BAKKA, a bookstore specializing in speculative fiction. I bought BAKKA in 1980, and continued to operate it for the next twenty-two years, until I sold it in February, 2003.

     For two years, I worked in sporting goods stores, as a part-time sales associate, first at the Beaches Running Room and later at Enduro Sport in the Beach. This grew out of my interest in long distance running, feeding both my enthusiasm for the sport and the people in it, and my well-developed retail skills.  I returned to bookselling, working part-time as a "Customer Experience Representative" at the Bay-Bloor Indigo, the largest bookstore in Canada for five months. In September 2005, I was hired by the Book City chain, to work full time in their Bloor West Village store, and in April 2009 I transferred to the Book City in the Beaches.

SKILLS:
Small Business requires contemporary owners and managers to master many skills. As a successful bookstore owner, I developed a wide range of aptitudes that allowed me to grow and maintain my business:

• RETAIL SALES: extensive product research and knowledge, marketing and planning, display and signage, specialty sales, inventory purchasing and disposal, inventory control;

• BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: staff supervision, hiring and release, training and scheduling, payroll, cash management and bookkeeping systems, accounts receivables and payables, realty lease negotiations;

• INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: design and creation of the store’s database for inventory and customer services, data entry, website design and maintenance;

• COMPUTER EXPERIENCE (Macintosh, some PC experience):
Microsoft Office: Excel (spreadsheets, accounting); Word (word processing)
Filemaker Pro; Wordstock, BookManager and ChaptersIndigo's SAP (databases)
Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (graphics)
Microsoft Explorer and Eudora (website and email)
Macromedia Studio: Dreamweaver, Freehand and Flash (web development);

• GRAPHIC DESIGN: logo design and development, complete production of in-store brochures, staionery, newsletters, promotion packages, as well as design and production of small-market items including The BAKKA Anthology.


EDUCATION:
B.A., Hons (York U, 1974), M.A. (York U, 1976), B. Ed. (U of Toronto, 1977).