Fast-forward through four years of absolute fun, albeit a bit blurry, at Irondequoit High School; and 1979 finds me graduating and getting ready for what would be a brief, seven month long college career. In late 1980, I jumped at the chance to work in a retail advertising office; hired originally to paste up ads and provide illustrations, as a way to help build my fledgling new graphic design business, Cocoanut Jam Studios.

I ran away from home at age 21.

By 1984, I've worked my way up, but eventually out of the advertising department, and am struggling to make a living doing freelance design work, lettering race cars and doing airbrush and pinstriping work. I work as a service writer and parts person at a local Western Auto service center four nights a week to make ends meet, and by 1986, I'm engaged to Paulette Palumbo. We assume a 20 year mortgage on a house down by the beach in '86 and get married in 1988.
Hit that fast-forward button again, and get past the years of eating macaroni and cheese, and standing my ground on pricing and standards in both our sign shop and our custom paint business, AutoGraph Customs. For a few years in the early 90's, I partner up with four friends, form the Motorsports Exhibition Group, Inc, and start producing what were unquestionably the best indoor custom car shows in Western New York. The novelty of losing money on such a grand scale wears off after a few years however, and MEG disbands. All the while, Paulette and I are running our sign and graphics business, the paint shop, and are still able to sneak in at least one, 4-day weekend of fishing up in the 1,000 Islands region of New York each month from May to November. By the late '90s, Paulette and I have outgrown our home. Not just in size, as the businesses grew and took more space; but in our mindset...the novelty of being down by the water, and five minutes from the beach was outweighed by the nuisance of the never-ending parade of hot rods and motorcycles that were beach bound from 7 PM on...and coming back past our place at 2 AM when the bars closed. It was time to move.

Uprooting our personal lives, not to mention two businesses, required a lot of planning and patience. We looked at well over 200 houses, mostly in outlying areas, for over a year; before finding the right place. The right place came in the form of a 3,800 square foot raised ranch with a walk-out basement, attached 2.5 car garage on about an acre of property in Adams Basin, New York. It was only 20 miles West of Rochester, so we could maintain most of our clientel base; and had more than enough space in the lower level of the house for the businesses. Adams Basin is a quiet, historic, post card-like hamlet on the Erie Canal, and our property backed up to Salmon Creek. It was perfect.

1998 was a tumultuous year. We took a month off from work, and in 30 days we spent $30,000 turning the lower level of our home into our dream shop in Adams Basin. '98 also found me securing my first paying gig endorsing a product, SignGold; and started working at sign and graphics trade shows on their behalf. The chaos hasn't stopped since. Now, I travel eight to ten weeks out of the year. Paulette and I still run the sign and custom paint shops, we launched an online clip art company (www.CustomClipArt.net) in 2004, and founded a marketing and promotions firm, Promotional Genius, in 2006.

Together, Paulette and I have created quite the little empire. All four businesses under one roof - and all under the collective name Brian The Brush World Headquarters. I'm presently enjoying being a regular columnist to a leading trade publication, AutoArt Magazine, and am proud to be a board member of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. I eventually stopped providing any services to SignGold, due to ethical differences; however we've added companies as prominent and prestigious as Spraylat's 1 Shot Paints division to our marketing portfolio and continue to try and release a new clip art collection every 60 days or so.

Now we have to start working on getting back up to the Islands for some fishing.

We suddenly and unexpectedly lost my father in May of 2008, on the day that he and my mother were permanently moving back to New York after 14 years in Florida. I can't even begin to explain what an influence my parents have been on my life, both personally and professionally. My work ethic, my sense of justice, my sense of humor and even my bluntness were "Briskie" traights. My dad was a car guy, and I'm a car guy. My dad was a collector of things, and I am an avid collector. My dad was a great storyteller...which is most likely the origin of my own journalistic endevours. My father taught me to treat customers and clients with respect, as they are my "bosses" at that point in time; but to never forget that we're adversaries. My dad also taught me that you're born with one last name and if you take good care of it, it still has some value when you die.