I started with Metro Networks in its Richmond office as morning producer and midday traffic anchor. During morning drive I would constantly update our list of traffic problems by calling police agencies and talking with our airborne reporters. Starting at 10 am, I would anchor traffic reports on news station WVNZ-AM 990, talk station WLEE-AM 1320 and country station WXGI-AM 950. I would also do additional reports for other stations when significant traffic problems would arise and was the regular fill-in whenever any of our morning anchors were out. While I never especially enjoyed reporting traffic, it gave me great exposure. I ended up being heard at one time or another on more than half of the radio stations in Richmond.

At that time the offices were located on the ninth floor of an office building in downtown Richmond, which gave us a view of the I-95 James River bridge, which was a regular trouble spot. The only photo I have from Metro is the one to the right. Co-worker Tracy Lynn Miller always had flowers on the window sill by her booth, which looked interesting to me on one of the few days I had my camera.

I maintained a grueling schedule, working at Metro from 6 am to 2 pm, then most afternoons I would go over to WRVA to anchor newscasts from 2:30 to 6:30 on the Virginia News Network. Between both jobs I was working 60 to 70 hours a week. It was really wearing me down, although I did appreciate having both days of the weekend off.

The biggest challenge for me was remembering specifics for each station. All had different styles and formats and of course the biggest sin of all was to confuse what station you were broadcasting on and say the wrong station name. Fortunately I only did that once, when I was reporting traffic on talk station WLEE. At the end I accidentally called it "All-News 990, WVNZ." I didn't even realize I had done it until the guy at the station called me. Thankfully he wasn't really pissed, just wanted to make I sure I realized I had done it.

In September 1997 I was able to transfer to the Miami office of Metro Networks. I had been looking for a way to get to South Florida, where my then-girlfriend Susan lived. Metro gave me a quick orientation on streets and I immediately started reporting traffic during morning drive on WSVN-TV 7 and sports station WQAM-AM 560. I would later shift to afternoons, anchoring traffic on WINZ, Newsradio 940, Christian station WMCU-FM 89.7 and urban station WEDR-99 Jamz.