He is a master of the collaborative method, teaming up with Chromatrope's clients to determine their needs and strengths, assembling the appropriate team and then tailoring the development process for highest efficiency and effectiveness.

Looking to broaden his design horizon he moved to San Francisco in 1993 where he continued to work in the traditional graphic arts while exploring other mediums. It was during this time that he began his work on large scale architectural glass installations with famed glass artist Gordon Huether, prototyping a computer based solution for mass producing his patented "inner-lite" glass units. The studio was a veritable hot-bed and spawned many creative spirits including the design team of Erica Von Der Heyden and Scott Zoog who left to form Studio 113 Art Glass.

In the mid-nineties Joe became a regular at Joe's Digital Diner, a semi-weekly spaghetti gathering of emerging Bay Area multimedia movers and shakers such as Dana Atchley, Joe Lambert and Mark Pesce. This forum was a mix of artists, engineers, entrepreneurs and programmers who turned him on to the shape of things to come for many years. It was early in the spring of '96 that he was exposed to the world wide web and saw the fantastic potential it held.
In December 1996 he co-authored the book, WebMedia Magic (IDG Publishers), with Kevin Hampton; targeting traditional graphic designers making the transition to interactive.

For the next several years he brought his creative spark to leading Bay-Area internet agencies such as Headland Digital Media and Organic Online. Headland's focus was CD ROM and web giving him the opportunity to mix the two realms. He was instrumental in bringing National Geographics CD ROMs "108 Years of National Geographic" and "Photographers of National Geographic" to a wider audience via the web. He also worked on one of the first MMORPG's; "netWar", developing the branding and packaging.

While at Organic, he designed websites for "Ages of Myst", Levi-Strauss and "Red, Hot and Blue". He also taught a design process class at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

In the Spring of 1999, in the heyday of the internet revolution, he assumed the dual role of Creative Director and Co-Managing Director at Think New Ideas in San Francisco overseeing large scale projects for Visa, Avery Dennison and Getty Images, growing the staff from 7 to 58. He was a featured speaker for Getty Images at MacWorld 2000.

In August 2002 Joe represented the Buckmister Fuller Institute at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa. As a correspondent for BFI's magazine "trimtab" he had the opportunity to view many aspects of the conference that do not make it to the evening news or local paper. While in South Africa he was fortunate to stay with then Johannesburg local Guy Liberman who introduced Joe to the people and history of the neighborhood he grew up in as well as providing logistical support.

"One part of that support came in the form of local photojournalist Cian Mcclelland who provided me with the best locations for filming during the Rally as I tagged along."

joburg march video (1,300k)

"I had the honor of filming the rally as it marched from the Alexandra township to the Sandton Center. In the past rally attendance could reach upwards of 40,000. This day it was much smaller, maybe 14,000. But everywhere I pointed my camera - it was color and life."

Following the conclusion of the WSSD, Joe and a few colleagues traveled into the South African bush country, traversing both the lovelt and hivelt regions of kruger national park where they observed the wild from an open vehicle.

Wildlife in the bush. (3,400k)

"Nothing compares with filming large mammals in their environment from an open 4x4."

In December 2002, Joe traveled to Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan to film some of the local culture and consume copious amounts of local cuisine.

Early winter in Kyoto, Japan - 2002 (9,700k)

"The temperature in Kyoto was just chilled enough for light snow and gray skies, I began filming at the first sign of sunrise."

Then it was on to Bejing, as an invited guest of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was there to present the EARTHscope at the "First Workshop on Digital Earth for the International Society for a Digital Earth (ISDE)", at which he became a founding member.

"Beijing is an amazing city - bridging ancient tradition with the latest technology. Each morning we passed through an immense construction site that is to be the location of the 2008 Olympics."

In June, 2003 Joe was invited to give a presentation during the panel "Networking a Sustainable Future" at the PlaNetwork Conference in the Presidio, San Francisco, California.

Joe once again represented BFI this time at the 3rd International Symposium on Digital Earth (also ISDE) in Brno, Czech Republic, September 2003. While there he attended an executive committee meeting with the International Society of the Digital Earth.

In addition to presenting the EARTHscope at smaller roundtable discussions Joe also participated in the symposimum meetings on various aspects of European digital cartography and geography.

The core team included leading mapping professionals Timothy Foresman, Phd and Professor Nickolas Faust who bring several decades of combined expertise to the fore.

MapRelief is a flagship project of the International Center for Remote Sensing Education (ICRSE). The mission of the ICRSE is to provide leadership in the application and technical transfer of appropriate spatial data and information technology to the professional workforce and society at large.

In early 2005 Joe was invited to become involved in a project created by the Environmental Information Coalition called "Earth Portal". Earth Portal is a revolutionary, comprehensive source of environmental information for people around the globe. It will provide clear, science-based resources on thousands of topics that help make sense of the issues, and is accessible via pioneering technology that changes the way we explore and discover the Internet. It is this technology that Joe, and chromatrope, were asked to assist with. The task at hand was to create a user interface that would be generated "on-the-fly" dependant on content and user requirements. The early mock-up can be seen here.

Late November 2005, Joe coordinated the development of a low-cost kiosk solution. The first application was utilized by Earthspan at two visitor centers - Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia and South Padre Island, Texas. One of the key features was a dynamic mapping function that linked the kiosk with radio-tagged Peregrine Falcons on their amazing journey.

In the early months of winter 2006, Joe spent three weeks on the island of Hawaii to film the changes occuring at Kiluea Volcano. Hiking several miles over black fields of lava to record live flows and their impact to the local ecosystem.

In late March Joe was in Honduras, Central America, filming a Manatee Aerial Survey and a Whale Shark Research team. The filming will culminate in a documentary to be presented to the President of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, as a example of ecological efforts underway in the country.

In June, Joe was asked to oversee the multilingual outreach for CHIEX - Climate and Health Information Exchange. This web based project featured map based reports in English, Spanish and Portugeuse.

87-88 New Paltz College, SUNY (NY): Education

American Association for the Advancement of Science, Avery Dennison, Broderbund Software, The Buckminster Fuller Institute, CHIEX - Climate and Health Information Exchange, Citibank / Citicorp, City Lights Publishing, Discovery Store, EARTHscope, Environmental Information Council, Earthspan, eVisa, Guy Lieberman Photography, Hewlett-Packard, 5th International Symposium on Digital Earth, Larry Ellison, Levi-Strauss, MapRelief, The Mormon Church - LDS, National Geographic, ManyOne Networks, Penguin / Putnam Publishing, Planetwork, Sak's Fifth Avenue, spaceshipEARTH.org, Stephen King, Susan Bloch Photography, Terrasystems, The Electrician, The Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, Tony Stone Images,Tuesday&Company, TurboLinux