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Charles W. Massie
Charles William Massie, III (born November, 1948) is an American sales engineer, humorist and author, best known for the true-crime novels, Pinned, Stains on The Gavel and The Red Road to Hades. Additionally, he has published a young adult adventure - The Boy in The Bin, a collection of short stories - A Cauldron of Spirits, a book of jokes and humorous stories - Fifty Two (52) Weeks of (dirty) Jokes and the first in a series of cookbooks entitled Too Good Not to Eat - Volume 1. All of these publications are available through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble Booksellers and other distribution outlets.

Charles Massie graduated from West Genesee High School of Camillus, New York ; a suburb of Syracuse, New York, in 1966, before enlisting in the United States Navy. During his high school days, he was known as being quick witted and always ready to tell a joke or clown around. After his discharge from the service, he attended University College in Syracuse, where he eventually earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering and Business. Throughout his working years, he submitted short articles to a variety of magazines such as Readers Digest, Analog, Red Book, Twilight Zone, Odyssey and other periodicals, using pen names because he had no confidence in his skills.

Early life and education
Charles Massie, the oldest of four children, was born in Buffalo, New York to Dorothy Mae Elmer and Charles W. Massie, Jr. His father worked as an inspector for Hartford Steam Boiler, Inspection and Insurance Company, while his mother was a homemaker. When Massie was 9 years old, the family moved to Syracuse, New York so that his father could take a position as Supervising Inspector and later Chief Inspector for Hartford.

Music was always an important part of his life, even though he never learned an instrument. In the early years of Junior and Senior high school, he decided that he wanted to become a disc jockey. At that time, the guidance counselor told him that he was too intelligent to waste his time on a trivial job. He recommended that Massie put his energy into a more professional field. Through the combination of working, military benefits and college discounts, he graduated in 1972 from University College, the night school arm of Syracuse University, with a degree in Engineering and Business Management.

Even though Massie had a full schedule between work and school, he always maintained time to pursue his hobby interests. He liked fishing, played little league baseball with the Westvale Optimists and was a licensed amateur radio operator. He built and maintained his own station and later was very involved in operating the amateur radio station while in the military service at Pensacola, Florida.

In the late 1980’s, he sold all of his amateur radio equipment and dove headlong into computers. His first unit was a TRS-80 from Radio Shack, and through this he began to learn the programming skills of dBase and C++ languages. The other driving force in his life was music. While he was never a musician himself, he had a great love for collecting artists and eventually because a night time disc jockey; working in Syracuse’s club scene.

Military Service
Shortly before graduation from High School, Massie enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve, where he attended meetings every week until he went on active duty. After he graduated high school, he was sent to boot camp at the Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois for 2 weeks. Upon return, he continued attending USNR meetings while working a full time job at General Electric in Syracuse.

In July 1967, he went on active duty with the U.S. Navy. In August of 1967, he was shipped to the Naval Communications Training Center in Pensacola, Florida, to become a Communications Technician. At that school, he was committed to 20 weeks of intense training in foreign radio communications. He transferred from there, to serve in a small naval base in Edzell, Scotland for the remainder of his active duty. Returning stateside after active duty, he returned to Naval Reserve status and served an enlistment total of 6 years.

Marriage and Family
Because of his work contacts in many industries and also being a social individual, Massie had the opportunity to date a variety of different women while single. But he continued an on-again, off-again relationship with Linda Driscoll; a woman he had met in the early 1970’s. They finally married in September, 1983; his first time and her second time. For the first year, they had a good relationship but the fact that Massie traveled constantly and excessive alcohol consumption by both parties, led them to divorce court in 1988. The couple never had any children. Massie later told a friend that he was glad that he tried marriage, but it was a one-time affair. To this day, he has remained single.

Before and After Military Service
During his high school years, Massie worked as a newspaper carrier for the Syracuse-Herald Journal, the areas local evening paper. He had 2 routes in his neighborhood where he would constantly interface with the public. He also promoted his radio and television repair service, Chucks Radio Service, where he would offer to fix tube and transistor devices for a lower cost than the professional shops in the area. He was able to do this because of his knowledge of electronics and his interest in amateur radio; one of his hobbies.

After graduation from high school, he secured employment at the local General Electric facility as a testing troubleshooter on the company’s Portacolor]] television line and later as a technician in the test equipment section of the company. Even though he did not care for the work in a factory, he maintained this position until June of 1967 when he was called to active duty with the U.S. Navy.

After his release from active duty and his return to Naval Reserve status, Massie went to work for Syracuse University in the staff catering department. It was through this experience that he learned skills in cooking, which would later help him in a later business. Working for SU also allowed him to take advantage of educational discounts at the college. During the evenings, he would busy himself studying at the SU night school, University College. The combination of discounts from the college and benefits from his GI bill, Massie was able to complete his studies and graduate at nearly zero cost.

After Graduation
After he received his degree in 1972, Massie floated around in a variety of contract engineering jobs, mainly because he did not know where he wanted to concentrate his expertise. He finally secured full time employment with Coulter Electronics in 1976, as a blood-chemistry and hematology specialist. His work involved the testing, repair and calibration of medical equipment in doctor offices, clinics and hospitals throughout New York State.

In 1980, Massie received an offer to head up AE Engineering, an engineering company in Richland, Washington that was responsible for the acoustic emission testing of high pressure vessels and pipelines throughout the United States. It was through this employer that Massie became certified by American Society of Non-Destructive Testing in the procedures of Radiography, Ultrasound, Magnetic and Dye Penetrant and Eddy Current testing of steam vessels, bridges, boilers and gas/oil pipelines. After a year and one half of working off high steel and crawling around inside boilers, Massie decided to concentrate his educational and work experience and formed Massie Engineering Consultants in 1983.

His small company would bid on requests for proposals in a wide variety of projects and many times, because of small staffing requirements, would be able to win contracts from larger engineering firms like Halliburton, Bechtel Corporation and O’Brien and Gere. Massie then formed an offshoot company called Servitest, Inc., whose sole purpose was to do Eddy Current testing on large air conditioning systems.This was an area previously dominated by companies like Carrier Air Conditioning and Trane Corporation.

A downturn in the economy in 1985 and the overall negative attitude toward nuclear power plant construction, forced Massie to rethink his objectives in employment and in 1987 he sold the assets of Massie Engineering Consultants and returned to work in the medical equipment field.

In 1987, Massie created a company called MediQuest, specifically dedicated to selling in-office radiography, ultrasound and bio-med analyzers to private physicians and small clinics. Additionally he marketed all of the disposable products needed by physicians such as tongue depressors, cotton swabs and EKG paper.

In 1988, he and his wife Linda were divorced and Massie went into a state of semi-depression and started drinking heavily. The end result was several DWI convictions, which caused him to lose his drivers license. Without being able to drive, he had to sell the assets of MediQuest and go back to being an employee at a local firm.

He found work with Ikon Technical Services in Syracuse, where he worked as an account executive. He routinely sold computer education to individuals and companies for training in a variety of computer applications and disciplines. For part-time employment, he worked as a disc jockey in some of the more prominent Syracuse night scenes such as Poor House West, Rosie O’Grady’s and Molly Malone's. The constant input of working with computer applications and technical training manuals, convinced him to move into computer sales as a vocation.

In 2001, he formed a company with two other partners called InfoTech Consulting Associates, LLC. The purpose of InfoTech was to design and build computer infrastructures for businesses and government agencies. He worked in close conjunction with city officials and IT engineers alike, to address problems with equipment and training. InfoTech was responsible for Oneida County (NY) arson strike force and 911 call center, as well as the inter-connectivity of the entire Schenectady County collection of government facilities. Part of the success of the company was as a result of Massie’s contacts within the industry from his engineering days.

In 2004, InfoTech was purchased by LogicWorks Corporation and all assets were transferred. Massie was effectively retired at this point. But retirement did not set well with him because of the boredom factor. After two years of semi-retirement, he returned to his love for cooking and started CaterCats, a catering and dining company with his then current girlfriend. CaterCats provided a simple, no frills menu of catered offerings for all size parties and gatherings. Additionally, CaterCats operated two snack bar/delis’ in the Syracuse area, one located in Medical Center West and the other located in Health and Fitness Island.

In 2009 Massie was diagnosed with severe atherosclerosis of his lower extremities. This condition made it impossible for him to carry food trays any length and as a consequence, he had to finally retire from working. But again the boredom factor would set in, which was when he decided to professionally start his writing career.

Writing Career
Throughout his professional life, starting around the 1980’s, Massie began to submit articles and short stories for publication. He had minor success with articles sent to magazines like Readers Digest and Red Book, and did sell several short stories submitted to publications like Analog and Twilight Zone; mainly in the sci-fi genre and mainly using a variety of nom de plumes. The offerings were periodic and Massie never really took writing seriously.

In 2009, he moved to Kentucky and began writing full time. As a result of the success of his first two books, Pinned and Stains on The Gavel, he continued developing manuscripts for future publications. He recently published 52 Weeks of (dirty)Jokes, a pocket book of humorous stories and one-liners. His young adult adventure novel, The Boy In The Bin, came out in eBook first, followed by a print edition in September 2015. His true-crime epic, The Red Road to Hades, released in 2016, has garnered him international status as a writer. Most recently, he has published A Cauldron of Spirits, a collection of his short stories. His current publisher is StarShow Publications, a firm that he owns and manages.

Future Plans
For the present time, Massie is committed to working on a variety of manuscripts and developing them into a presentable form for publication. He intends to combine his published works into a boxed-set and release it through a traditional publisher; possibly in 2018.

He has had conversations with agents for the possible production of a screenplay of The Red Road to Hades, but has elected to put this on the back burner, while he works on releasing the sequel, Roxie's Tale, in 2018. He also continues to work on All done with Mirrors, a trilogy concerning the reincarnation of souls, to be released at a future date.

Other than that, Massie continues to take each day as a gift and enjoy it to the fullest. He still continues to collect music, specifically from the Progressive Rock. He splits his residence between Kentucky and New York State.