To start with, I can tell you that I am originally from Cosby, Tennessee. My hometown is a little dot on a road map in the eastern part of the state near the northwestern edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. Depending on your point of view, Cosby is either the last chance for gas as you drive east through the mountains on Interstate 40 before entering North Carolina, or it is the first sign of culture after driving into Tennessee from North Carolina. If you ever happen to travel through the area, pull off one of the exits there in the county and have a rest. Cocke County was a great place to grow up, and since an Ogle has been in Cocke County long before Tennessee became a state, I'll hopefully find my way back there someday.

After graduating from Cocke County High School, I went to Walters State Community College in Morristown, Tennessee, where I received an AAS degree in Architectural Design with ultimate plans of becoming a civil engineer. I thought I wanted to design buildings and roads for a living. However, after working a few years as a computer-aided designer for German-based engineering firm, Mahle, I realized that the engineering lifestyle would not be the right path for me.

I decided to further my education at The University of Tennessee, in Knoxville. After going to school a few more years, I left UT with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the Marketing, Logistics and Transportation Department.

My first job out of college was in Knoxville at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), where I worked primarily in the Marketing Communications department. I suppose the overall goals of that department was to introduce the industrial, commercial, and professional worlds to the benefits of doing business in the Tennessee Valley, and to market non-power related technical assistance and consulting services of TVA to the world. To be involved with TVA at a time of transition from federal funding to that of a competitive entity in deregulated markets was very interesting phase to be part of. While there I worked with tremendously talented people who knew much about regional economic development, directing marketing campaigns of varying scope, brand development, international relations, environmental issues, multi-year strategic planning, and on and on. I enjoyed working there; however, a position in my hometown came open that I just couldn't pass up. While in business school, I developed a feeling that instead of a career working to pad the pockets of Big Business, I was driven to help raise the quality of life for ordinary individual citizens and small business owners of a community.

In November 1998, I became the Director of Tourism for Newport and Cocke County, Tennessee. The chance for me to promote and market the communities where I grew up was a special opportunity for me. It was awesome to work with the people - and parents of people - with whom I grew up. Soon after I started the job I realized that the county needed a positive graphic identity, a competitive slogan for image promotion, and something that the people of the community could relate to and be proud of. I also felt the main priority of getting the tourism program headed in the right direction was to get Cocke County online. With those priorities in mind, I spent a majority of the first few months on the job creating an identity for the county and developing a new website. (The Tourism Department now updates the official site, but the site circa 1998 is archived here.)

After establishing an online presence for the county, much of the work in the community that followed centered on promotion and development of the county's economic and natural resources, both regionally and nationally. Wonderful community volunteers and local business owners helped with the 21-person tourism council, and it was a pleasure to work with local and regional government and community leaders on tourism related projects. While serving in that capacity was gradifying, it really wasn't one where I could institute a great deal of change for the overall benefit of the community. While I truly enjoyed marketing the county, promoting local business, and working with many great people of the community, I felt that I needed to be at a different level to be truly satisfied in my career.

Many of the projects I worked on dealt with community planning and business development issues, which really intrigued me. I soon became interested in strategic planning and sustainable community development, and after talking with several planning professionals on the matter, I realized that returning to school would be good decision at that point in my career. Overall, I feel I did an outstanding job as Tourism Director, and had an enjoyable experience for the time I was there. I left my post as Director of Tourism to attend the Graduate School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Tennessee. After two years, I graduated with a Master of Science in Planning with concentrations in Futures and Environmental Planning.

Being in graduate school during the growth of the "Internet Boom," and unfortunately having to look for a job during the subsequent crash, I applied my research toward planning for the effects that the Internet and wireless network applications will have on the next generation of communities. My thesis was a study of how the Internet is changing the American community and what planners can do to benefit from the network-mediation information and communication provided by wireless community networks. I've archived my thesis proposal here and the entire thesis here. I've left other class papers online as well. The first was for a Comparative Poverty and Development class that discussed the socioeconomic situation in Chiapas, Mexico, and the events surrounding the Zapatista Rebellion; the title of the paper is, "iYa Basta!" The second discusses the tactics that corporations use to sway public opinion. The paper focused mainly on Exxon and their corporate struggles since the Valdez disaster in Alaska, but I also relate topics from other industries; the title of the paper is, "Saving The Tiger."

I now work for the University of Tennessee Community Partnership Center, which is a center within the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment. Government marketing is basically what I've done, and now at UT, I work with various organizations to help promote sustainable economic and community development programs in communities throughout east Tennessee.

In the fall of the year, my interests fall onto the football field. I referee various levels of football and have been doing so since the fall of 1989 as a member of the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association (TSSAA), which in turn, is a member of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFIOA). I've been reffing football at various levels since the fall of 1988, beginning at the little league level and working my way up. The 1997 season was my first year officiating college football. I really enjoy reffing football games, and reffing gets me outside close to the sport I love.

Since I do love football, growing up so close to The University of Tennessee as well as being a graduate from there, I have been a huge Tennessee Volunteer football fan all my life. If you would like to check out this year's schedule along with information on the teams that Tennessee will play, just click here to go to my Tennessee Volunteer football page. I don't update the page as I should, but you'll find information about the Vols schedule and their opponents along with some humor and some interesting pictures I made especially for the site. Many Volunteer football fans have asked that I put one of Tennessee's fight songs, "Rocky Top", on my site. So now the original bluegrass version of song is there, along with the lyrics for folks who do not understand the way we talk in east Tennessee. If you have a RealAudio player and would like to listen to "Rocky Top," click here to go to that page.

I live about an hour away from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, so I naturally love to be outdoors hiking and camping whenever I get a chance. I really enjoy taking advantage of being outdoors in beautiful East Tennessee. Whether it's taking a day trip on my mountain bike through Cades Cove, or taking a couple days vacation to hike a bit of the Appalachian Trail, or enjoying many of the hundreds of other National Park trails, there is always something to revive the dulled senses of the day to day. I made a page to journal all my trips and hikes into the Smokies and will eventually post pictures and stories to share from those continuing experiences.

Another one of my hobbies is cooking. I really like experimenting with spices and herbs in the kitchen and outside on the grill cooking all kinds of stuff for friends and family. I like flavorful foods such as fajitas and jambalaya and other Spanish, Southwestern, and Creole styles of food. After visiting most of those regions of America and spending lots of time cooking various dishes after returning from those places, I put together an excellent blend of spices that works great with all those foods I love - the blend that is now known as "Hellspice."

What really got the momentum going for the seasoning mix was in 1994, when Jayne, now my wife, offered to send me to a Cajun cooking class as part of a Christmas gift. The class was wonderful and sprouted an even greater desire to cook things with herbs and spices after understanding what natural ingredients work best together to draw the most flavor out of whatever is being cooked.

As a suggestion from Jayne, we put some of the seasoning mix in small, glass bottles and gave them as little gifts to the family for Christmas that year. A family member absolutely loved the seasoning and suggested that I sell the stuff. I first laughed off the notion, but thought about the idea for a while and after few weeks decided to follow through with the idea. I first obtained a trademark for the brand Hellspice, then made arrangements for the production of the first bottles to be made. All that was left then was to create a home on the Internet, so a little while later "Hellspice dot Com" was born. Since February of 1996, Tennessee Hellspice has been a little personal hobby, and slowly, the world has been learning of its culinary pleasures.

Some personal creations and recipes that Hellspice customers have created and emailed me over the years are posted here. Read the recipes, get hungry, then order some Hellspice like they did. It's that easy. If you are interested in knowing more, click here to go to the original Tennessee Hellspice page.