VP and Creative Director, Set Now Solutions
Mike was born with a camera in his hand… OK, not literally, but he was given a Kodak Hawkeye Instamatic camera at around age 10. He grew up in a creative family. Both of his parents were professionals by day, but instilled a deep love of visual arts and music in Mike from an early age.
Throughout grade school he played piano and trumpet, and picked up the guitar, his current favorite instrument, at age 11. (This love of music continues to this day, as Mike is "marginally proficient" on a variety of different instruments.)
When it was time to choose a career, Mike went to Ithaca college in upstate New York, and studied radio and TV communications, with an emphasis in PR and advertising, and a minor in writing. At this time, video cassettes were becoming standardized in TV production studios (Sony 3/4" U-Matic), and audio was still being edited by traditional cut-and-paste (literally!) methods. While film was still the traditional medium for photography, reusable magnetic tape was now the standard for video, and Mike fell in love with video and audio production. (Here's a related trivium: Mike's Dad, Arthur, is the inventor of the process for getting the magnetic particles to stick to the recording tape!)
Mike's first job out of college was for a conference center in Princeton, NJ as a photographer and video technician. He produced what was then called "multi-media" presentations, which were animated 35mm slide shows created by synchronizing as many as 12 slide projectors together via a primitive computer, matched to a taped soundtrack.
After the conference center, he worked as a commercial artist in the print and marketing industry, and worked as a shooter, editor, and video producer for the corporate, entertainment, educational and broadcast markets.
When video editing went digital, Mike was one of the first to embrace the new 'non-linear' technology.
His next career jump brought him to a video post-production studio where, in addition to animating and editing TV commercials and corporate video, he developed and programmed interactive multimedia, first for CD-ROM, and then for the web.
In 1999, he joined his wife Sarah, helping to build Set Now Solutions into a leading web development and digital marketing company. In 2004, they launched CorpNote.com, an online email marketing tool for small and medium size companies. CorpNote was recently retired after 20 years of helping businesses create visually rich communications, manage event registration, and conduct online surveys via a suite of web-based email tools. Over the years, CorpNote had customers on every continent of the world (except Antartica).
Mike's next chapter in his career with Set Now Solutions has been the creation of two DIY-based YouTube channels, one for auto, home and technology educational content (@Mike Fyxdt) and the second to share his new hobby, horology (watchmaking) with other aspiring DIY watch repairers and wristwatch enthusiasts (@WatchWithMike).
Mike shares Sarah's enthusiasm for gardening, and they both follow a strict "organic only" regimen for their vegetable and fruit gardens, beds and lawn. Mike also enjoys mixed martial arts, woodworking and playing his ever-expanding collection of guitars.