SVII Principals
John Joss
John Joss has been writing for 30+ years. After serving in the Royal Navy as a pilot he started writing in London for a conglomerate (I.C.I) and a motorsports magazine. He moved to Texas: oilfield engineer for Schlumberger, then technical/promotional writer for Dresser Industries. He moved to San Francisco as advertising/promotion writer Silicon Valley pioneers Ampex, Fairchild, Hewlett-Packard and Varian Associates.
He created product 'launches' for high tech companies, wrote ads/collateral for agencies and clients, speeches for F100 corporations, winning business/technical proposals worth >$10B for clients worldwide and devised a business-plan format for a dozen Silicon Valley startups. He was first pilot-writer to fly, photograph and write about the U-2 'spy and plane' ('76) and the U.S. Navy "Blue Angels" ('70), later TOP GUN and RED FLAG, and flew NASA's Space Shuttle simulator. He writes for newspapers, magazines and TV, plus screenplays and AV presentations, and has been the m/c-commentator at scores of events, primarily motor sports and aviation. His commentaries/VA have been broadcast worldwide on PBS-TV, BBC-TV and network radio (CBS).
His publishing companies---The Soaring Press and The Practical Press---sold 70,000 copies of 10 books in 40 countries worldwide. His own book writing includes fiction (SIERRA SIERRA, Morrow, New York; and nonfiction (STRIKE, Ballantine-Presidio) among his novels and non-fiction books (20 books in all, on subjects ranging from high technology and military aviation to human behavior and poetry).
Organizations served include: Ampex . Apple Computer . Bank of America . Canon Camera (Japan) . Cisco Systems . Ford Motor Company . Fairchild Semiconductor . FlexLink (Sweden) . Fujitsu (Japan) . G.E. . Grundig AG (Germany) . Hewlett-Packard . IBM . Imperial Chemical Industries (UK) . Intel . Kodak . Monsanto . Motorola . National Semiconductor . NorthropGrumman . Philips (the Netherlands) . Raytheon . SKF (Sweden) . Stanford University . SRI . TRW . Teledyne . Texas Instruments . Transamerica . Unisys . United Airlines . Varian Associates.
Newspaper/magazine/broadcasting features include: London TIMES . New York TIMES . INC . AVIATION WEEK . BUSINESS WEEK . San Francisco CHRONICLE . COMPUTERWORLD . CONTROL ENGINEERING . DATAMATION . DEFENSE ELECTRONICS . ELECTRONICS . EVOLUTION . SCIENCE . ABC . CBS . PBS . the BBC (UK).
Fiction: SIERRA SIERRA ('79) * SIMIA ('02) * A FULL ACCOUNTING (with Viktor Belenko, '03) * CHAMELEON ('03) * ROLE PLAY (2005) * KK (2005).
Nonfiction: WINNING ON THE WIND (1974)---ed. * ADVANCED SOARING (1976) * TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN (1977)---ed. * SOARSIERRA (1978) * SAORAMERICA (1980) * STRIKE---U>S> Naval Strike Warfare Center (1989) * SHOW ME THE MONEY: How to Earn a Living as a Writer (2003) * THE RED PRINCESS (2004)---ed. * PERSONAL ENERGY (2005) * ORDEAL BY FIRE (2006).
Documentaries include: TECHNOLOGY UPDATE (CNS Radio---300 broadcasts) * THE LAST MOFFETT AIR SHOW (m/c & VO) * GREAT GARDENS OF ENGLAND (VO) * BRITAIN: THE GARDEN KINGDOM (VO) * ENGLISH GARDENS AND COUNTRY GARDENS (VO) * GARDENS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA'S WINE COUNTRY (VO) * THE HISTORY OF AIR COMBAT (scriptV/O) * THE FUTURE OF AIR COMBAT (script/VO * THE HILLBOROUGH CONCOURS D'ELEGANCE (VO 1986-2005)