Many children dream of becoming firemen or doctors or lawyers when they grow up. But as they grow older, new skills are developed and new opportunities arise, leaving many with careers they never expected to have when they were younger. And while most adults end up with traditional jobs, sometimes a career will take a very unusual twist and a person will land a job that they never envisioned, not even in their childhood dreams.
BLACK ENTERPRISE decided to profile four individuals who, through choice or happenstance, wound up with unusual jobs. They’re smart, productive, interesting, and — perhaps above all — having fun and getting paid to do so. Hailing from different areas in the U.S. and representing different age groups, they are as unique as their professions. Over the next few pages, we’ll introduce them to you.
Lord of the Three Rings: Johnathan Lee Iverson
It may be cliché to dream of running off and joining the circus, but after graduating from college, Johnathan Lee Iverson did just that.
In 1998, Iverson graduated from the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music in Connecticut with a degree in voice performance. He landed the coveted role as ringmaster for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus when his agent scheduled him to audition for a dinner theater shortly after his graduation. The dinner theater’s director also happened to be directing the 129th presentation of the circus, popularly known as The Greatest Show on Earth. The production was going to be the most lavish ever — costing about $12 million — and set to a score of Broadway-style music that required a singing ringmaster. Iverson had the perfect range for the score and won the role, making him Ringling Bros.’ youngest ringmaster, at 22, and the first African American.
Now 27, Iverson is in his sixth year with Ringing Bros. “It’s live entertainment; it’s the original fear factor,” says the native New Yorker who loves being able to control the entire circus with just the power of his voice. The three-ring circus is made up of around 180 performers and 80 animals. There are two separate groups of performers and each group tours about 45 to 48 cities a year. A new version of the show is done every two years.
Becoming Ringling Bros.’ youngest and first African American ringmaster garnered him much national attention, and he was even named one of the 10 Most Fascinating People of 1999 by Barbara Walters. When on tour, Iverson and his fellow performers live in a fully furnished, mile-long train. “We have a nursery, a school for the children, Bible classes, and every kid that has a birthday has a party, and everyone shows up.” He even married one of his fellow performers, the Ringling Bros. dance captain and assistant choreographer.
Looking ahead, Iverson wants to turn entrepreneur and produce film and television projects. ” I want to be able to put out exactly what I make and enjoy,” he says. “Every artist’s dream is to own their own career.”
Play for Play: Denene Millner
Many parents dread the Christmas season, when they must brave long holiday check-out lines and stress over what toys to buy their children. But for 35-year-old Denene Millner, finding the latest kiddy craze is all in a day’s work.
As articles editor for Parenting magazine and the lead editor on the magazine’s annual toy feature, Millner plays with hundreds of toys throughout the year, beginning with the annual toy fair in New York City, which is held in February. There, she and her team of assistants select anywhere from 600 to 1,000 toys that will be tested by hundreds of kids and parents in order to offer top pick recommendations for the magazine’s annual “Best Toys” issue in November. “Kids are a great barometer of what’s cool and hot, and moms tell us [things like,] ‘Oh, that one was too hard to put together.'”
Picking out cool toys might
seem stress-free, but Millner notes that the selection process is tedious. Only about 40 toys are chosen for five categories in the November issue. Each toy that initially tests kid- and parent-positive must face another line of scrutiny to make Parenting’s pages. “One toy expert, three interns, and an assistant go through all of these toys to make sure they are educational, well-made, easy to put together, and won’t get on anyone’s nerves,” she says.In addition to overseeing the annual toy feature, Millner edits Parenting’s Ages and Stages section, the Reality Check advice column, the Playtime craft section, and assigns larger features. Her position pays above $40,000 per year and is a great fit for Millner’s lifestyle. “I have two small children and a stepson, so I’m always addressing how I can be a better mother,” she says. “This position was the perfect opportunity to meld my love of journalism with my love of being a mom and wife.”
Millner can usually be spotted hard at work inside her toy-filled office — a place that is very popular with visiting children. “Kids will sit in front of these toys and play with them for hours.”
Comic Relief: Kyle Baker
Kyle Baker has what many might call a dream job. He gets paid to draw cartoon characters. And he’s good at it. “Since I was a little kid, I used to read the funny papers with my grandfather,” says Baker, who grew up in New York City. After high school, he enrolled in the School of Visual Arts in New York, but dropped out because he became too busy earning money with his art, including working for Marvel Comics.
These days, Baker, 38, is an accomplished cartoonist, having written/illustrated several books including You Are Here, Why I Hate Saturn, The Cowboy Wally Show, I Die At Midnight, King David, Undercover Genie, and Cartoonist. His books gained him enough exposure to lead to freelance work for a variety of publications. “It
was good because I got to work in my own style,” Baker says of his graphic novels. “If you’re just working on Bugs Bunny, nobody can really see what you can do.”Since then, his cartoons have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire, Spin, Rolling Stone, Vibe, The Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, ESPN, MAD, Us, Guitar World, Details, and National Lampoon. Baker has also dabbled in animation over the years; he sketched preliminary designs for Eddie Murphy’s character, Donkey, in the animated feature Shrek. Baker, who estimates that he earned about $150,000 in 2003, also illustrated Birth of a Nation, a graphic novel due out this year, written by The Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder and writer/director Reginald Hudlin.
Now living in Woodstock, New York, Baker recently launched his own publishing company, Kyle Baker Publishing. Technology has lowered production costs so much, he says, that it’s much easier for artists to publish their own material, distribute it, and retain the rights. “I reached a point in my career where I realized that if I hadn’t sold away the 20 years of work I did, I would own thousands and thousands of cartoons,” he said. “Now, when I’m old, I’ll own thousands of Kyle Baker cartoons.”
A Bug’s Life: Duane Jackson
Spending half your workweek in a laboratory filled with flies, termites, and ants might not sound like the ideal career to most people, but it’s a dream job for animal behavior specialist Duane Jackson.
Jackson, an associate professor of psychology at Morehouse College in Atlanta, decided at the age of 8 that he wanted to study animals, but he didn’t think he’d end up specializing in insects: “I thought I’d end up working with small- to mid-sized woodland animals from the dog family, such as foxes [or] wolves. I was also fascinated by marine mammals. Insects were just a hobby.”
Jackson, a Chicago native, had planned on attending UCLA or the Univer
sity of Hawaii
The civil rights activist’s presence intimidated the 16-year-old Jackson. He enrolled in Morehouse and became a biology major. But after taking a psychology course, he realized that what he was really interested in was the
behavior of animals, not their makeup. He was able to satisfy his own interests and his academic requirements through the classes in animal behavior that were offered in the college’s psychology department.
Jackson, 56, has been teaching in Morehouse’s psychology department since 1987. He received his Ph.D. in comparative psychology/behavior genetics from the University of Illinois in 1990. The pay scale for someone in Jackson’s position, at a college about the size of Morehouse, is between $58,000 and $63,000. A larger institution would likely pay $10,000 to $15,000 more.
Jackson is currently researching aggression in termites. Termites, ants, and humans are the only animals known to engage in large-scale organized aggression — or what we call war. Jackson explains, “Other animals engage in a sort of street fight, where every animal does everything. Termites have different roles: individual, specific duties to perform [in war], much like humans are trained in the military.”
Jackson is also investigating termites’ repulsion to light with Morehouse physicist Dr. Willie Rockward. “Collaborating on looking at termites’ reaction to light under different wavelengths may reveal that light can be used as a deterrent for termite infestations,” Jackson says.