InformationWeek

1997 Network Managers Salary Survey

A Career From Disc Jockey to Disk Drives

He's not your father's network manager. In fact, Patrick G. Appleson--the highest paid respondent to InternetW eek's Salary Survey--isn't a network or IT manager at all. The 50-year-old president of the company that bears his name, Pat Appleson Studios Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was a disc jockey until 1976 and today he does voice-over commercials for over 200 automobile dealerships in the United States and Canada, as well Levitz Furniture Corp. and other large companies.

The rest of the time, Appleson sells customized software packages to broadcasters and computer companies that radio stations use when cataloging and searching for records that listeners request to be played.

He does well enough to make $450,000, 40 percent in salary, 50 percent in bonus and the rest in options and healthcare insurance. That makes him the highest-paid person in our survey.

Using a software package called Telos Zephyr from Telos Systems of Cleveland, he is able to send stereophonic CD quality sound over twisted pair copper on ISDN lines to anywhere in the world, Appleson says. He uses it to send voice commercials to c ustomers who are in a hurry, such as car dealers who want to change an ad and need to get the changes to a radio station in an hour.

Appleson is putting together a Web site to advertise his business. "In five years we will be sending radio spots as a file attached to Eudora. That's where we are going as soon as we get ATM. TV commercials will do the same thing. Now you send them reel-to-reel or cassette or use a store-and-forward satellite connection."

When it comes to the sudden glut of Web developers out there, Appleson advises others to be careful: "I know four zillion people who can build Web sites, and they have never seen a computer. It is kind of like the Wild West."

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