From an interest in photography in his youth Mr. Risley was able to apprentice as a motion picture film editor while attending New York University. Without finishing his degree work he joined the Navy (’63-’67,) and after attending U. S. Naval Photographic Schools and rated as a Cameraman Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class, he served the rest of his enlistment working as a sound editor on documentary and publicity films at the Naval Photographic Center, Wash. D.C.
Risley then worked free-lance on industrial documentaries and the production of TV commercials in various capacities, mostly in New York City. His first experience with client contact was as a Photographer’s Rep at Warsaw Studios which specialized in still photography for mail-order catalogs.
He then combined his early audio-visual and production experience working as an Account Manager in advertising agencies; among these were Young & Rubicam-New York, and Geer DuBois, still in New York City.
Later it was back to free-lancing as an audio-visual consultant and presenter for “live” Industrial Shows for Marketing Concepts, Inc, (A Gulf & Western Company,) while collaborating in the development of new programming for TV, with limited success, until his retirement to Vermont.
The origins of MemoirSite came as Mr. Risley looked over his resume. He wondered what an obit-writer or biographer would make of some of the twists and turns his life had taken thus far and whether anyone might find in it anything of interest? Then he remembered the old saw that there must be a story within every life (The City used to have eight million of them, according to an old radio program.) He further thought- who better to find, structure, organize and ultimately recount that story than the one living it?
This concept intrigued him enough to seek help in developing it for the internet as a social-networking site, an area with which he was unfamiliar. He fortunate in finding Robin Grant and in turn Robin introduced him to Stephanie Fraser, and the MemoirSite partnership was born.