Raised by a pack of conservative wolves in Toledo, Ohio, Bob Frisk found his way to the San Francisco Bay Area in January of 1975. “I couldn’t believe all these people were wearing winter coats. 65-degrees is T-shirt weather,” he recalls.

Early career days at KTVU in Oakland taught him the value of preserving storylines while doing cut-downs of syndicated shows and movies for broadcast. From there, a stint at the station’s news department earned him two Emmy Awards for film editing.

A trip across the Bay to public broadcasting outlet KQED in 1978 led Frisk to more news projects and documentary films. Included were movies for PBS, such as “S&M: One Foot Out of the Closet,” which features Phil Bronstein, executive vice president and editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, and won a Silver prize at The New York International Film Festival in 1980.

Around this time, new videotape technology spawned a slew of new “reality” TV shows. Frisk gravitated toward this medium, editing program segments while continuing to hone his storytelling skills. In 1982, Frisk went to work for Varitel Video in San Francisco. There, he met Tom Muldoon (co-founder of Bay Area edit shops Nomad and Superior Assembly) and John Murray (co-founder, Superior Assembly.) For several years, the trio collaborated on numerous projects, including TV shows such as “PM Magazine” and early music videos.

By the mid-1980s, Frisk had transitioned into advertising via the field of online editing and finishing. In 1987, he was introduced to a young agency called Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein. “This was a real eye-opener for me,” he said. ”These guys were making commercials that had real, cinematic stories. So I took my experience in longform and applied it to advertising, and discovered a whole new world that was simultaneously bizarre yet creatively satisfying.”

Numerous spots later, in 1990, Frisk moved to Editel, San Francisco, where one of his early jobs was Chevy’s “Fresh Mex” campaign for Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein, with creatives Steve Simpson and Tracy Wong. Bob remembers not so fondly: “This was still the videotape era; there was no Avid. Several layers of graphics and sound all had to be completed in just two or three hours. Now, imagine that pressure, compounded with the pressure of working with two of the sharpest and funniest creative directors in the industry—you just try to be funny in that situation!”

In 1991, Editel was destroyed in a fire, and Phoenix Editorial rose from the ashes to take its place. Frisk’s client list grew to include Foote, Cone & Belding, Young & Rubicam, Hal Riney, and a number of Goodby spin-offs, including Black Rocket, Butler, Shine & Stern, and Venables, Bell & Partners. During this time, he cut commercials for some of the biggest names in the business, with directors Jeff Goodby, Bob Kerstetter, Leslie Dektor, Baker Smith, Michael Bay, Joe Public, David Frankham, Erich Joiner, Neil Tardio Jr., Tom Routson, Justin Reardon, Craig Gillespie and Marcos Siega among the collaborators. Frisk has also added numerous awards to his shelf, including Cannes Golds, Clios, D&ADs, DGAs, Addys and Emmys. All in all, his relationship with Phoenix has proved to be an incredibly fruitful one. More than a decade later, they are still editing compelling stories together.

On a personal note, Frisk lives with his wife Wendy, a patrol officer with the San Francisco Police Department, and their two sons, Joseph and James, in a house they built in Brisbane, CA, along with sundry dogs and cats.