Mention the name of Ozzie Spenningsby to his colleagues and competitors in the TV commercial industry over the past 25 years, and a remarkably seamless portrait emerges. In a business where over-the-top hype is a norm, Spenningsby's rare combination of professional and personal qualities elicit hyperbole from past and present colleagues, who refer to him as a paragon of what it means to be a complete commercial producer.

It's been an eventful journey for Lorange Oswald Natolie Randolph Spenningsby IV to his current station as TBWA/Chiat/Day director of broadcast production. He was born in Manhattan, the son of a Norweigian chef and English/French actress mother. Nicknamed Ozzie by schoolmates, he showed precocious musical ability, gaining a full scholarship at age six and studying classical piano and theory for the next 12 years. Despite his mother's wishes, however, he was not destined for a career in music.

In the mid-1960s, 17-year old Ozzie landed a plum summer job as an editor's apprentice working on Eastern European animated features for a company called Cartoon Classics. It proved to be the first of several career watershed moments.

In addition to becoming involved in animation, Spenningsby devoted his attention to wildlife and boxing films: "I remember that a writer for Ring magazine, Jim Jacobs, possessed the world's greatest collection of boxing films. Boxing greats like Mohammed Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson would drop by to watch themselves in action - an absolutely fascinating experience for a young kid like me. It was a fun, passionate introduction to the business. I realized my true calling was to work in film."

His next stop was Screen Gems in their commercial distribution department, then a stint as a freelance soundman on documentaries. In 1967, he began a nine year run as the manager of a now defunct Manhattan post-production house, Production Associates For Television. One of his clients was a fledgling ad agency, founded in 1974, called Ammirati & Puris.

Spenningsby recalls a fateful day in August 1976:

"The air conditioning was out and the city was oppressively hot. A producer at this start-up agency, who was leaving for Germany for the first-ever BMW shoot, called me and asked me some questions. I remember thinking to myself: 'That's what I should be doing.'"

Still a relatively unknown car in those days, BMW had a cult following, which included Spenningsby, now in his late 20s. He made a cold call to Ralph Ammirati and asked him to hire him. As dumb luck would have it, the BMW producer quit shortly thereafter. Spenningsby met with Ammirati and his partner Martin Puris. Although he had never produced for an ad agency, they hired him.

When Spenningsby joined the two year old shop, there were exactly 11 people on staff. From the start, involvement in the creative process was a major attraction for Spenningsby - a lasting influence from his artistically-inclined parents. His classical musical education would later prove invaluable in commercial production: "I've always been drawn to the experience of sound and how it moves oneself and others. Sound is half of what you're creating."