An economics degree from Cornell University. A law degree from UF. Experience as a marketing director.
These milestones had Eddie Mordujovich on a fast track to becoming one of New York's wealthy, young businessmen.
But they aren't the reasons why he spends his time with Emmy Award-winning actor Joey Pantoliano. They played no part in the fact that, at 34, he'll have his third book under his belt this October. And they don't factor into the change in his posture or the smirk on his face when he talks about his job.
For that, he points to serendipity.
Flashback to 2000. Fresh out of college, he was working as marketing director for Kargo, a wireless Internet company he said was too ahead of its time-it was created before wireless was available.
Inevitably, the company crashed, and four years out of college he was laid off, collecting unemployment checks every month.
He managed to get a temp job in New York's New School doing administrative work until the job ended in October and he was once again on unemployment.
That went on until December 2001, when he got a call from his friend and son of his childhood piano teacher, Gleb Klioner, who was working as Pantoliano a.k.a. Joey Pants' agent, mentioning that Pants was looking for a new assistant.
A week later, he was on the set of "The Sopranos" in Queens, watching Pants as he went through his takes.
When Pants had a break, he walked over to Mordujovich, sat down and interviewed him for the job.
The interview was one question:
"How fast can you type?"
He started working as Pants' assistant for free.
He handled his schedule, went to the set with him, took his phone calls and acted as the assistant for the writer working on Pants' autobiography.
Then, on a Wednesday in March 2002, he got the call.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Eddie, it's Joey. The writer left the book, and she thinks you can write it. You think you can put something down?"
"Sure."
"Get me a chapter by Friday."
Click.
Short of a tennis article that appeared in the Cornell Daily Sun in 1997, he hadn't published any of his writing.
But what he compiled in the next 18 hours became the 10th chapter of Pants' autobiography, and his first chapter as a writer.
He was given six weeks to finish the rest of the book.
"I was chained like a monkey to the offices at Penguin Putnam," he said.
He didn't get a byline on the book's jacket. This was because he also collaborated with writer David Evanier, who came to help finish the autobiography.
He said ghostwriters usually don't have their names on the books they write.
He was, however, listed in the acknowledgments as "the great Eddie Mordujovich."
All he needed from there was encouragement.
The editor and publisher from Penguin Putnam called Pants to comment on the new chapter.
She said Mordujovich captured him in that chapter better than the previous writer had all along.
"I needed someone to tell me that I could do this f-king book," he said. "It felt good."
Since then, he has ghostwritten another book, "How to Buy, Sell and Profit on eBay," and was called in a second time by Pants to ghostwrite his contribution to Larry King's "Remember me when I'm Gone," a collection of celebrities' goodbye letters to the suspended talk show host.
But writing gigs weren't paying the bills.
Mordujovich packed up and went to work at a bank in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he met his wife.
But serendipity had him by the throat again.
Unannounced and unexpected, his sister died in New York at age 32.
Worse, he remembers, their last conversation was an argument, ending with her saying that he had ruined her life.
He decided a priority change was in order.
Mordujovich moved again in 2006 to Florida for law school. His mother lives seven hours away in Miami.
While living in the sunshine state and going to UF's Levin College of Law, he tapped his connection to Pants and co-produced "Canvas," a movie about the plight of a father (Pants) and son, dealing with his wife's schizophrenia.
The movie was well recieved.
It won eight awards, and he was already working on a documentary about Pants before he had his law degree in 2009.
And serendipity struck a third time.
His documentary about Pants' depression prompted the start of a charity for those with brain disease called No Kidding, Me Too!
Now, after another nudge from Pants, Mordujovich has started ghostwriting a book about Pants' awareness, diagnosis and recovery from mental illness and substance abuse.
He spends most of his time now talking to Pants alongside his co-writer, Ashley Moskowitz-Nugent.
Even she came into the scene serendipitously when Mordujovich decided he needed help. Remembering her as a friend from college, he called her out of the blue one weekend to tell her about the gig. She agreed, and was in the office working with him that week.
They both spend their days listening to Pants, recording him and interpreting him for the book. Both do spot-on impressions of the actor's characteristic high-pitched voice.
Mordujowvich said the book, due to come out in December, might be titled "Tales from the Great Depression." His deadline is in October.
Looking back on his storied life since college, he said, laughing, "I kind of live my life like a windsurfer. I go wherever the wind and the waves take me."
