Work History, 1977 to Present

1994 to Present

I have been a freelance photographer since 1994, and a freelance writer since 1997, headquartered in the Asheville, NC area, and specializing in place-related content about North Carolina, the Southern Appalachians, and Great Britain.

Here are the highlights:

1994 to present

I create a stock library with 24,000 of my images, indexed and managed by software I wrote myself. This has been the basis of hundreds of individual photo sales and assignments over this entire time period.

1997

I deliver photography to Compass American's North Carolina, 1st Edition, for which I receive cover credit as photographer. Compass American is Fodors' prestige color guidebook series, and is published by Random House. They end up using 50% more images than normal for this series, citing the excellent selection.

1998

I receive my first magazine article assignments from British Heritage, a nationally distributed color bi-monthly publication. Since then, British Heritage has given me 67 British travel-history assigments, all of which combine writing and photography. Other assignments (photos and/or text) have come from The New York Times, Our State, Reiman Publications, Media General, and Japan's Travel the Heart of Britain.

1999

I deliver new photography for the 2nd edition of Compass American's North Carolina.

2001

I deliver new photography for the 3rd edition of Compass American's North Carolina.

2002

I deliver my first travel guide, The Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains: An Explorer's Guide, to WW Norton's Countryman Press, as a new addition to their presige guidebook line, Explorer's Guides. This consists of 200,000 words and 90 of my photos. I wrote content management software to ease its production, and this has since proven invaluable in revising two new editions and writing four other travel books.

2003

I expand my content management software to include web site authoring and management, based on xhtml and css. This website, as well as my main website harganonline.com, are examples.

2004

I deliver my second full-length guidebook, The Shenandoah Valley and the Mountains of the Virginias: An Explorer's Guide to Countryman Press, with 200,000 words and 90 of my photos. I also deliver the 2nd edition of The Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains: An Explorer's Guide. My content management software makes it possible for me to deliver two 200,000 word entry-based books in a single year. I have now photographed and written about every corner of the Southern Appalachians from the Potomac River to the Georgia Blue Ridge.

2005

I deliver new photography for the 4th edition of Compass America's North Carolina.

2006

I deliver North Carolina Impressions to Farcountry Press; I am co-photographer of this picture book with Laurence Parent.

2007

I deliver the 3rd edition of The Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains: An Explorer's Guide to Countryman Press.

2008

I deliver new photography for the 5th edition of the Compass America's North Carolina.

2009

I deliver America The Beautiful: North Carolina to Firefly Books of Canada, a picture book consisting of 70 of my photos, for which I receive title page credit.

2009

I deliver The Photographer's Guide to the Blue Ridge Parkway to Countryman Press, with 20,000 words and 70 photos. They liked it enough to commission a second volume in the series from me.

2010

I deliver The Photographer's Guide to the Great Smoky Mountains to Countryman Press, a 20,000 word book with 70 of my photos, due out in Fall 2010.

2010

I am writing North Carolina: An Explorer's Guide for W.W. Norton's Countryman Press imprint — a 150,000 word structured guidebook with 90 of my photos, due out in Spring 2011.

1977 to 1994

I was in charge (with various titles) of Planning and Research at The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Tampa, FL, one of the ten largest sheriff's offices in America. I left to pursue other interests.

Highlights include:

• I developed formal systems for deploying the 1,000+ deputy patrol force over a 900 square mile jurisdiction. These systems (which were my main charge over the period) developed over time, but had this in common:
• They were centered on the deputies' perceptions of their needs, with their active participation.
• They developed statistical measures outward from a goal-based model.
• They analyzed differences in demand for police services over space and time.
• They distinguished between routine services, discretionary anti-crime activities, and emergency responses.
• They had a formal review and adjust cycle.
• I initiated a program in which the Sheriff's Office would participate in county land use planning decisions, again focusing on our agency goals of suppressing crime, ensuring proper emergency response, and ensuring proper patrol coverage of newly built districts. This involved legal research and liaison with county staff. We were particularly concerned with flood emergencies in this hurricane zone as these put deputies' lives at serious risk, and with preventing crime through proper design.
• I constructed a queueing model of emergency response time that predicted the likelihood of slow or chaotic emergency service, for all locations and on all shifts. It was based on the average physical separation of beat officers during each shift, and the likelihood of each officer being unavailable for response. This was a powerful budget document, as well as showing where uneven allocation of workload would help or hinder emergency responses.
• I helped design pioneer Community Oriented Policing programs, including a grant funded program personally announced by President Clinton.
• I completely redesigned the incident reporting system, then paper based, to concentrate on crime suppression goals and, as a part of this, to reduce deputy time spent on paperwork. This was so successful that it was in use for 12 years, until replaced by computer based systems after I had left.
• I was in charge of Uniform Crime Statistics, which I managed for internal usefulness and strict compliance with FBI standards. This involved the supervision of from one to four employees.
• I managed grant application and Affirmative Action reporting, two areas with complicated Federal and legal requirements.
• During this time I developed a journalistic writing style — what we would now call a "blog" style — to increase my internal effectiveness. I found it best when dealing with sheriff's deputies to get straight to the point.
• I supervised from one to five employees, and answered to a member of the Sheriff's senior staff (the equivalent of a president or department head).