Growing up in rural West Tennessee, I (sadly enough) experienced the world through my favorite television shows. These same programs influenced my career choices. At various times I was sure I was going to be a witty ER doc like Howie Mandel on St. Elsewhere or a gruff but beautiful Philadelphia cop like Christine Cagney from Cagney and Lacey. But, alas, I entered college at about the time the extremely handsome Gary from thirtysomething was mesmerizing his undergraduates with his deep thoughts on life, love, and Beowulf. Suddenly I found myself an English major. But instead of entering the academy, I got a job in publishing, and I’ve called that industry my home ever since.

So, you might ask, why is a literature-reading publishing slave studying to become SAS® certified? Well, other than a shameless attempt to become famous via SAS Publishing’s new Open Mic blog, I believe I will become a better editor as a result. Here at SAS Press I work with many different types of books, from those that deal heavily in statistics to manuals with pages and pages of code to business books published in the Wiley and SAS Business Series. And, in editing those books, not only do I work with a wide variety of SAS experts who serve as our valued authors, but I also team with technical experts throughout the company who graciously give their time to review our books and make them the best that they can be. It only follows that I and our authors would benefit if I had a good working knowledge of the software that is the basis of so many of our books.

So join my colleague Christine Kjellberg and me as we begin the journey toward SAS certification, using the SAS® Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming for SAS(9) as our primary resource. I can’t promise that the journey will be an easy one (or that I’ll ever reach my destination). I have books to edit, marketing copy to write, conferences to attend, and projects to manage. It will be difficult to work in the time for study and practice. But I hope that my attempt inspires and even amuses you at times. Wish me luck!