Ron Roszkiewicz

Ron Roszkiewicz began his involvement with the woodturning industry 35 years ago in a makeshift shop located in a tobacco barn in Hatfield, Massachusetts. There he experimented with tools and wood and through trial and error learned to do some things on the lathe reasonably well. The barn was owned by David Stemple and Jane Yolen (the famous children's and scifi author). In time Ron moved to a garage shop in Amherst and began making things for sale. Before long he learned from the Whole Earth catalog that a company called Woodcraft Supply would be a good place to find tools and accessories for turning. It was on one of his buying trips that he filled out an application and joined the staff at the Woburn store. Before long he was Catalog Director with product managers seeking out the best tools to buy or reproduce. Along the way he became an integral figure in advancing woodturning in the United States by discovering and importing many of the innovative turning tools relied upon by woodturners today. Ron found that good books were lacking in basic turning technique so he wrote "The Woodturner's Companion" (Sterling 1984) and "The Woodturner's Art (Macmillan, 1988)." He now lives in Emeryville, CA.

Ron Roszkiewicz's career in graphic arts, publishing and technology began in 1987. The five years after leaving Woodcraft were spent creating content with positions at the following companies: Sterling Publishing as book packager, cover photographer, and author; Charles Scribner's Sons as special interest book program editor; and as consulting editor for Macmillan Publishing and Time-Life Books.

The next 17 years were spent developing technology for graphic arts, prepress and publishing industries. Ron's introduction to technology began with his inclusion on the seminal Visionary team at Scitex that developed the first desktop to high-end prepress workflow. Subsequent positions included: PostScript lab manager at Xyvision; senior manager for new product development at Dainippon Screen; vice president of engineering at DK&A; and president of metadata tool development company Pound Hill Software. In nearly all of the positions listed above Ron was part of a skunkworks engineering initiative focussed on creating the next generation of products for the parent company.

Currently Ron consults with companies on metadata strategies, digital asset management implementations, and product positioning and rollout support. He writes regularly for The Seybold Report and the Henry Stewart DAM Journal on best practices for digital asset management systems adoption, project management techniques, practical uses for metadata, conference and product reviews, and other related topics.