User:Denniswikipedia/sandbox

Dennis Carl Gleason (born August 14, 1970) is an American producer, director, volunteer, actor and software analyst. He first came into the public view in 2004 as a producer for the Tualatin Valley Community Tevision[1] station located in Beaverton, Oregon. He has won many awards for volunteer and community service, serves on board of directors for nonprofit organizations and was recognized by the local ABC affiliate KATU Channel 2[2] as an Everyday Hero in 2012[3] for thousands of hours of volunteering. His software analyst experience includes working for Wells Fargo[4] as a senior systems quality assurance analyst working on the well known ApplePay[5] application where iPhone 6 users can make point of contact purchases with their phone.

Early Years
Dennis was born at Portland Adventist Hospital in Portland, Oregon to William Dennis Gleason and Dianne May Gleason. He was raised in various locations including Portland and Troudale Oregon and West Fargo, North Dakota. His mother was a seamstress and owned a small drapery business out of their home at one point, then becoming a homemaker in 2000. His father was a multi-axle truck driver. His parents divorced when he was only 2. His mother raised him until 1976 when he went to live with his grandparents, with his brother, in West Fargo North Dakota. His mother later re-married in 1979 when he moved back with his mother in fall of that same year and was raised by her and his new step-father who later was killed by a drunk driver in 2006. Dennis has many step and half siblings but only one full brother and no full sisters.

He attended Powell Valley Elementry School initially then to West Fargo Grade School until he was 9 when he transfered Corbett Grade School shortly after his mother was re-married. In winter of 1980 they moved where he then attended Sweetbriar Elementary School for his 6th grade. Dennis continued through Rockwood Middle School and then Columbia High School where he graduated in June 1989 - the final graduating class of that school before it was consolidated and name changed - see Reynolds High School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_High_School_(Troutdale,_Oregon)

Before graduating high school, Dennis started a company to provide landscaping and seeds to teachers and family friends called Dynomite Enterprises that was first licensed in the City of Troutdale in 1988 at the beginning of his senior year.

College Years
After high school, he attended college at Mt. Hood Community College where he majored in business administration and minored in criminal justice/public safety and became involved in the DECA program on campus that he claimed "...it was just college club to most of the other students, a fad they'd outgrow and move on from, but I saw it as a step in a direction I'd never considered before. I would say without a doubt, I'm where I am today, because of that program." He also became a certified lifeguard that he used later in his career. No degree or diploma was obtained but did become a certified Lifeguard, First Aid, CPR and First Responder.

Productions
Since 2004, he has produced and directed many shows and their episodics including Conversations with Dr. Don[7], Cycology Today[8], Transportation 101[9], Hideout Ministries[10], TV Linux[11], Shakespeare's view on the News[12], Westside Stories[13], What's Between Us'''[14] and others. Productions also included many published and nonpublished programming for events and political activities such as Virginia Garcia Memorial Hospital's Healthcare Symposium[15] and Oregon League of Minority Voters' Annual Liberty and Hope Awards Dinner[16] and dozens more.

Records
He is also known for programs he produced and hosted that were his own with the four most well known are the Ballot Measures Debates[17] filmed at Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB)[18] in 2008 which is unverifiably noted as the largest Oregon public access broadcast program in Oregon history encompassing OPB and all 9 public access stations in existence at the time, paid for by the now defuncted Sanford-Brown College[19]. Largest Gathering of Pirates[20] first US Guiness Book World Record[21] was produced at the Portland Pirate Festival[22] at Cathedral Park in Portland, Oregon where an official 1670 people broke the standing English record. Both the festival, filming and submission was produced by him.

Personal Shows
His On The Fly TV[23] show he began in 2007 had many celebrity guests including Amy Roloff, Star of Little People, Big World, Ms./Miss/Teen/Mrs. Oregon International winners between 2007, 2008, 2009 & 2010, international composer Michael Allen Harrison, makeup artist and hairstylist M'chel Bauxal whose clients include President and Michelle Obama and hundreds of A-List Celebrities and 7 time Grammy nominee Geoff Byrd. Notably, he was engaged on this show live to M'chel Bauxal on May 20, 2009 who he later married on November 15th of the same year.[24]

Teen Idol
Finally the most notable program is Teen Idol[25] - a multi-lingual / multi-state talent competition television program acquired in 2011 from the City of Portland's Portland Parks[26] under its previous name Portland Teen Idol. His noted context with the program includes the expansion into Spanish, Russian and Standup Comedy - the only English program in Oregon to include more than just English and Spanish or English and Russian and the only known singing competition to have multiple competitions and have them tour together. The program also has had 4 students place in the top 100 of the national television reality show American Idol[27] - which included a top 20 and 11th place student and one additional that made top 25 of the former Nashville Star[28] national reality country music competition. Students from over 80 local middle and high schools have participated as a performer, volunteer, student or contestants since 2011. He was the producer of the Season 2 Semi-Final and Final competition in 2008 as well as producer for performances in 2009 and 2010 prior to acquiring the program that is still active.

Activisim
He lead a response in the hearings for Tualatin Valley Community Television[29] in 2013 when officials with in the Metro Area Communications Commissions[30] recommended reducing the public access program down to approximately 5% of what it had been with no studios for public use. He attended and spoke on behalf of over 100 registered producers and founded the Save Public Access Politial Action Committee[31] - a State of Oregon recognized Politial Action Committee.

Board Service
Dennis has served on the Oregon Media Production Association board of directors, for two terms and include both Treasurer and Vice President officer positions. OMPA is a 501(c)(6) trade association promoting entertainment production, tax incentives for and finding employment/talent opportunities within Oregon.

Police Activities League
Unlike many that are in law enforcement, Dennis was both an intern and volunteer but never an officer proper. In college at Mt. Hood Community College, he took a course that included an internship with the Portland Police Department called the Police Activities League (PAL)[] which had him helping under priveledged children in NE and SE Portland near the PAL office that had changed hands to the Gresham Police Department and then closed altogether in later years. Although time with Portland PAL was short as it was attached to when he was in college, he was able to help launch the first Cops verses Portland Trailblazer Alumni charity basketball tournament.

Oregon State Police
Later, Dennis joined the Oregon State Police[] department through its now discontinueed Fish & Wildlife Enforcement division helping troopers police violations related to fishing and gaming laws, providing motorist assists when needed or appropriate and occaisional blocking roadways during floods, landslides and sink holes foreced closure of the roads. http://www.dfw.state.or.us/agency/volunteer/

Search and Rescue
For two years, he was involved off and on in a small regional search and rescue group until 1995 where firefighters, military and other first responders learned how to do extractions in mostly wilderness situations including rivers and strong current situations and helicopter based ocean rescue. There was no official name of the group however Northwest Rescue was created in 1997 that may have been the orginal group becoming formalized. http://www.nwrescue.com/instructor_profile.php

Milwaukie Police
He later became an intern for the Milwaukie Police Department (Oregon)[] providing ride-a-long assistance to officers and working with the theft department reviewing stolen item reports and searching for fenced and consigned items in local hauk shops when met his first wife while on volunteer patrol that led to him leaving law enforcement on her request.

Additional Volunteer Service
Dennis later divorced started to pursue full time officer positions throughout Oregon and SW Washington applying and testing for dozens of agencies. He became a board member on the Beaverton Police Activities League board of directors and later became an Officer on that same board that included members of several law enforcement agencies including the county sherrif, city police, FBI and US Marshall Service which lasted approximately five years. At about the same time he became a volunteer with the same county's sherrif's department working on their Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) until a disagreement between him and his supervisor led to him leaveing the department after about a year of service.

Ride-a-long Patrol
In addition to his time above, he had logged over three thousand hours of patrol time with over a dozen agencies[] in two states (Oregon and North Dakota) in his quest to become an officer when the day after 9/11, he was injured in a traffic accident on the way home from the Westside Police Activities League board meeting. That accident took him out of law enforcement permanently and still suffers the effect from the accident.

Early Work History
Looking at his whole work history, he started out at 12 years old picking berries and doing odd jobs until 18 when he started to work at McDonalds near where he was living in Troutdale, followed by a pizza parlour called Dona Marias. He went on to work at the YMCA youth center in SE Portland providing lifeguarding and instruction for youth while going to college and working graveyard at 7 Eleven. Later he moved away from the area, next door to his old residence in Corbet Oregon living with on of his best friends and his parents and worked as a cook for Mutlnomah County School District in the same camp that he attended in 6th grade - Camp Collins owned by the YMCA. He continued providing landscaping through is high school started company in addition to regular work.

Target and JCPenney
Looking for a change in direction and picking up his law enforcement interests, he moved temporarily to stay with family in West Fargo North Dakota where he got a job at Target and only a few months into it, transferred back to Portland to live with his grandmother and working at Target in Clackamas. While there, he was involved in a car accident, hit from behind by a truck that forced him on disability for several months. With Target planning to let him go, he found a new position as an account manager for JCPenney in an unmarked office buidling in Milwaukie, just up the street from where he had volunteered for thier Police Department.

Wells Fargo
In 1996, First Interstate Bank was taken over by Wells Fargo opening up the opportunity for him to move ahead and away from Clackamas and left JCPenney and there he stayed. Originally working in high balance home equity collections, moved to be a collections specialist for 90+ delinquent customers after only five months and after less than a year, began working on databases, the Y2K project and in December of 1999, was promoted to be a technical analyst. After being out after his accident directly following 9/11, he returned to work after 3 months to find a new position as a Business Systems Consultant that he eventually was promoted from level III to senior level V converted to a new title, Systems Quality Assurance Analyst V in 2014 where he sits today, testing some of the banks' technical projects in the consumer lending side of the bank.

Acting / Hosting
From his early DECA days