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Neil Greenlees (www.greenleesjournalism.com) originally intended to pursue a career in the travel industry but decided to change direction towards the end of a two year course at Belfast's College of Business Studies.
He successfully applied for a place on the National Council for the Training of Journalists Pre-Entry Certificate Course which meant a third year at the College.
This was followed by several months of voluntary work with the organisation Age Concern which ended when he obtained a trainee reporter's position with the Newtownabbey Times.
Based in Glengormley on Belfast's northern outskirts this weekly newspaper was owned by Belfast Telegraph (Weeklies).
It was here Neil first obtained experience of covering magistrates courts and council meetings as well as some of the grimmer aspects of life in Northern Ireland at the time.
Two years later he moved to the Antrim Times, part of the same group which was then bought by Lurgan based Morton Newspapers.
Here like many Northern Ireland based journalists he continued to deal with stories related to 'the troubles' .
This trend continued when he joined the staff of the Ulster Star, one of Morton's most successful weekly papers, where he remained as a reporter for almost 21 years.
The area covered by ,the Star' as it is known in Lisburn suffered its fair share of bombings, shootings and civil disorder before the 1994 IRA ceasefire. A number of incidents have occurred since.
However, not all of Neil's work has focused on Northern Ireland's political difficulties.
He has written extensively about many other issues of concern to the Star's readers including retail development, house prices, public transport and health matters.
He has been in regular contact with politicians representing the entire spectrum of Northern Ireland political opinion and has interviewed a number of the province's Secretary of States including Douglas Hurd, the irrepressible and much missed Mo Mowlam and Peter Hain.
He has also interviewed the President of the Irish Republic Mary Robinson and been present at numerous visits by members of the Royal family.
Neil has interviewed a number of celebrities including Rula Lenska, Lesley Joseph (best known to TV audiences as Dorien in 'Birds of a Feather') and Gary Wilmot.
Latterly, a great deal of his work featured on the Ulster Star's website www.lisburntoday.co.uk and he was responsible for gathering material for the site's travel section.
During his time as an Ulster Star reporter the Morton group was bought by Scottish Radio Holdings who sold it to Johnston Press (JP) several years ago.
In December a restructuring operation within JP's Northern Ireland Division led to management seeking a number of voluntary redundancies among its staff.
After giving the matter a great deal of thought Neil reluctantly applied and was accepted. He left his position on March 6 and is now in the process of establishing a career as a freelance writer.