Nancy Cartwright.

As I write this article, I am sitting at a desk in a hotel in Englewood, Colorado. It isn’t a “bad” hotel, but it isn’t a “great” hotel either. It is simply “the best” hotel that Englewood, Colorado, has to offer. I will be here for just this one night. Tomorrow morning I am delivering the keynote speech to about 200 young women at St. Mary’s Academy, the fifth oldest private school in the Denver area. I have never visited Englewood, Colorado. To be honest, I did not even know where it was on the map. I had to check Google and saw that it is a stone’s throw away from Denver.

You may or may not know this, but I have traveled extensively around the world giving various inspirational speeches, university lectures and performing my one-woman show — which focuses on my life as a “10-year old boy.” Of all of these events, I have to say that I am particularly partial to speaking with students… especially those who are interested in really being there to learn, rather than just skipping class.

As it turns out St. Mary’s Academy is sponsoring a “Leadership” conference. The headmistress contacted my office about six months ago to see if I was interested, and I gave them a resounding “Yes!” because these girls are my “ideal public” as they are the same age I was when I was formulating my own dreams for the future.

If you don’t mind, let us go back for a moment. It is spring, 1977. I am working at WING radio in Dayton, Ohio. The president and general manager of the station knew that I had dreams of doing voices for commercials and cartoons. In fact, one day he told me that a representative from Warner Bros. music was going to visit the station to promote music and asked if I would like to meet her. Darn tootin’ I would. Well, Warner Bros. to me meant Mel Blanc — the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Tweety Bird and dozens of other animated characters. This was a dream of mine, to meet and work with Mel Blanc.

Later that morning, I was introduced to Anne Schwebel. We shook hands and my boss told Anne that I was interested in doing cartoon voices. Anne gave me her card and told me that if I were to write her a letter, she would get it to the right people in the animation department. So, I wrote her a letter and to my surprise, she wrote me back! She included the names and addresses of some of the top animation departments, including Filmation, Disney and Hanna-Barbera. She advised me to send a sampling of my voices even though at least one of the studios only hires “celebrities.” I did not let that stop me.

She also included the name of “Daws Butler.” I had never heard of him, but later found out that he did most of the voices at Hanna-Barbera. You should know this bit of trivia: back in the 1960s, when animation was in full swing for Saturday morning cartoons, Daws Butler did not get any screen credit for all the voices he did. Mel Blanc fought for his rights and was actually the only voice actor to be credited for many years, despite the fact that other voice talent worked alongside him, including Mr. Butler.

At any rate, you can imagine that after I received that reply, I was on Cloud Nine! I followed up by sending everyone my tape. I had no address for Daws Butler, so I picked up the phone and called him. Long story short, Daws became my long-distance mentor. He would send me scripts in the mail and I would record my voice on a tape and mail it back to him. He would listen and give me a critique, but it was always positive and encouraging. Within three years, I was living in Hollywood and earning my living as a voice artist.

Now let us return to present time, March 2006: About a month ago, I got an unexpected email. It was one of those “Remember me?” emails, but I have to tell you — I was exhilarated! It was from Anne, my first real networking success.