A Journal of sorts and sights
MontanaVoice is a site of both published and previously unpublished writing and photos. I add and change stories and essays and photos on this site frequently, so I hope you keep coming back.
I enjoy writing and photography, and at various times in my life have made a living from publishing fiction and selling photos. However, since about 1995 I have kept my writing and photos to myself as I focused on the companies that I have started and grown. Paradoxically, this site is the public display of some of what is very privately mine: my memories, my feelings, my
moods.
In addition to my writing and photography, I am the a co-founder of RemoteScan and iCloseBy Corporations (RemoteScan has over 20,000 corporate customers worldwide, and iCloseBy is a well known iPad/iPhone app development company with the flagship product being iWallFlower ). I am also a co-founder and partner of the idea/technology investment group Cynical And Jadded. However, I mostly associate my ego with who I was for many years: a drifting runaway. I like best the self description Picaso lived up to: “I’d like to live like a poor man with lots of money.”
- Steve S. Saroff, Missoula, Montana
Steve S. Saroff Resume
(key points listed here, or just read this: Part one of How to Make Ten Million Dollars )
* Long obsessed with studying, reading, and mountain tops, at 14 I walked alone 500 miles in the Appalachians, then another 500 miles alone when I was 15, and still another 1000 miles alone when I was 16.
* I Left home and school and hitchhiked West when I was 17.
* When I was 19 years old I spent 45 days walking alone in the Bob Marshall. That set the pace for everything that followed: I’ve never been intimidated by wilderness, solitude or ambitious plans. I also appreciate the rewards that come from listening and shared stories; I appreciate people in ways that only someone who has been long alone can.
* I also like writing short stories and published a lot of them a long time ago. Some in what were once high paying magazines. I like simple words and what they can do.
* I left high school early, but I have a college degree. When I was 22 years I was hired by Bente Winston to be the science teacher at Sussex School, a private elementary school in Missoula (a wonderful job). Starting when I was 25, I worked for two years as a faculty research assistant for the Oceanography department at Oregon State University, and spent a few months on a ship in the south pacific. Other than these jobs all my other technical jobs where I have worked for other people have sucked-shit. Thus I started building my own companies.
* I really enjoy building things that work well.
* Before the Internet (back when programmers could only make a living if they agreed to wear ties and work in cubes), I was a dishwasher, cook, waiter, truck-driver, general laborer, farm hand, nail-pounding carpenter, writer, cattle ranch-hand,musician, carpet installer (the second worst job I ever had), oil-field worker in Sydney, Montana, copy writer for ad agency (the worst), hay bucker, technician in a computer store (also very bad), and a firewood cutter (the best)– and all the time dreaming of where to go next….
* I haven’t outgrown the enthusiasm for what surprises me.
* People who help others have my greatest respect. We are best remembered for the good we do for others. This the only real goal of mine that is life long.
* I started programming computers as a kid when it was about as financially rewarding as knowing how to fix lawnmowers; I started coding because I loved it. I think I have used about 30 different computer language to make money. I also know a lot about digital electronics, geochemistry, ceramics, entomology, literature, playing music, writing, photography, chess, teaching, and raising kids. When I was 12 years old I learned Morse code and got a ham radio license and stayed awake many nights listening for distant call signs. When I was 20 I built a laser (liquid dye, pulsing) after reading an article in Scientific American. Recently I started keeping bees as well as being busy with setting up a ceramic studio. I have been trying to formulate my own glazes and re-learning how to throw pots on a wheel. This is all interconnected.
* Even though this is a resume, I am not looking for any kind of employment, however I like being part of fantastic ideas and will consider investing in or becoming involved with truly surprising and great projects. Contact me if you are working on such a thing and think I would be a good fit. I will consider working on projects for equity and/or board involvement.