Editor's note: This is one in a weekly series of profiles on locally owned and operated businesses in Southern Oregon.

What do you do and how long have you been doing it? I've been a disc jockey in the area since 2000. We're a mobile DJ entertainment company. I do festivals and weddings and I perform, playing the ukulele and fire knife-dancing.

How long have you lived in the Rogue Valley? I move to the Rogue Valley from Northern California in 1991. I transferred from College of the Redwoods to play football for Southern Oregon University.

What inspired you to go into this line of work? I used to do work for Wells Fargo as a mortgage loan officer. I was figuring out different ways to network and make money doing that. The DJ work was a niche entry. My friends from Hawaii encouraged me. When you are doing DJing you are usually doing weddings and then you would meet young couples. I was doing such good business doing DJ that it was a no-brainer to do loans with me too. Like anything else, when the economy went crazy I had to choose which profession I wanted to stay with and decided to stay with the DJ side. All of a sudden there were a million DJs here. You could find DJs on Craigslist for $20 an hour.

What decision or action would you change if you could do it again? I probably would have done more advertising instead of just straight networking. It used to be just the back-burner.

What's the toughest business decision you've made? Just taking the chance, the leap of faith and trying to do something a little different. I'm not going to be doing a W-2 and working for someone else. Switching it over to where you don't have that and figuring out a way to attract the people. Coming out with the two packages really helped.

Who are your competitors? If you look at it in a general aspect, it's always been competitive. The huge influx of DJs that came out of everywhere, you'd have grandma pushing buttons, everyone trying to make that extra buck to survive. I couldn't be part of that 90 percent out there, I needed something unique. DJ Hope is a local radio personality who works in clubs and weddings.

What are your goals? I never knew there was a market for people to enjoy my ukulele playing. I'm in the process of completing my first CD. I've got samples of my ukulele and fire knife- dancing on my Web site. I'm not only a DJ anymore, I'm really an entertainer. I emcee and do a little comedy so I'm a one-man juggernaut now from lights and sound right to people's back yard. I go all over the United States now. I've had offers to go to Tennessee and Alaska. I turned them down because I already had gigs scheduled. Right now I'm already booking into 2010, it's been the craziest thing. It's all about the service. I just finished up doing a retirement center grand opening at Twin Creeks in Central Point.

What training or education did you need? I studied criminology at College of the Redwoods and Southern Oregon University. I knew numbers, so I got into finance. I learned the ukulele from friends growing up. I had friends who fire-danced and they burned themselves. I burned myself, too. It's about learning simple techniques — I don't do it until the sun goes down.

What's your advice for budding entrepreneurs? Don't stop, reach for your dreams, don't let anybody stop you and stay positive no matter how hard it is.

To suggest ideas for this column, about businesses that are at least five years old, contact reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or e-mail business@mailtribune.com