Our History

The current version of MathTV.com was started in 2008. That summer, Mr. McKeague hired six of his students to help him proofread and error check a college algebra book he was working on. Because of the extremely positive attitude of his students toward improving the book they were proofreading, Mr. McKeague decided to see how the students would do in the studio. With a little coaching they actually did very well. In 2009, we started adding online versions of three of Mr. McKeague's textbooks to the website, and experimenting with building an online homework system. In 2010 we published the first print versions of those textbooks with our new publishing company XYZ Textbooks, and we officially launched our online homework and gradebook software with XYZ Homework. In 2011 we will add new titles to our list, and continue to offer our materials at reasonable prices.

Our Mission Statement

We produce quality materials for mathematics instruction, including textbooks (both print and electronic) videos, online homework, and worksheets. We want students to buy new copies of our textbooks and keep them for reference for courses they will take later in their college careers. We offer all of our products at a reasonable price, with professional, accessible service. Our goal is to give students the opportunity to be successful in any college mathematics course from basic mathematics through the first year of calculus. Study skills, success skills, and common mistakes are integrated in with all our materials.

Our Name

When the first two books authored by Charles P. "Pat" McKeague were published, the art department needed a cover design and went to a local New York City hardware store. They purchased X, Y and Z wood address blocks, brought them back and photographed them. This has been a trademark of ours ever since, and has appeared on the covers of McKeague books for years.

Our Principals

Charles P. "Pat" McKeague, Publisher, CEO

Mr. McKeague earned his B.A. in Mathematics from California State University, Northridge and his M.S. in Mathematics from BYU. He began his teaching career at Lompoc High School in 1970. During the summers in Lompoc, he taught elementary school. In 1973 he became a full-time instructor at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California. His first book, Elementary Algebra, was published in 1979, with a price of $12.95 to students. In 1985 he resigned his full time teaching position at Cuesta College and began his tenure as a part time instructor, and full-time textbook author. In 1995 he became a lecturer at Cal Poly State University, teaching calculus and differential equations. Mr. McKeague is very active in the mathematics community, speaking at regional and national mathematics conferences throughout the year. He was on the writing team for the American Mathematics Association for Two-Year College (AMATYC) Beyond Crossroads project, which set the standards for mathematics instruction at the two-year college. In 2007 he was awarded the AMATYC Presidential Award for his service to the two-year college mathematics community.

IN HIS OWN WORDS: I have had a wonderful, varied teaching career, from teaching elementary school classes, all the way through to freshman calculus at the university. I am best suited to community college teaching. My heart is in the developmental mathematics courses. Don't get me wrong, I love to teach calculus, but I identify more closely with the developmental math students, and I think I am more effective there. Throughout my career I have been extremely lucky to have students that always impressed me with their willingness to improve their position in life through education. My teaching colleagues have been patient and helpful, and have done their best to make me a better teacher. My friend Patrick Clevenger was a great role model for me in my first teaching job, and Gil Stork was the person that I tried to emulate when I got to the community college. When I needed someone to show me to look at things from a business point of view, Fred Russell was the person I relied upon. My publishing career has been a dream, and I have been extremely lucky to have worked with some of best editors in the business: Stephen Guty, Michael Johnson, Nancy Evans, Liz Widdicombe, Amy Barnett, Rich Jones, and Anne Scanlan-Rohrer to name only a few.

Amy Jacobs, Sales Director, Region 1

Amy has 10 years of experience in publishing, starting as a sales representative with Wadsworth and Brooks/Cole Publishing, representing those companies first in Los Angeles and then later in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is currently the vice president of sales for XYZ Textbooks.

IN HER OWN WORDS: I graduated from college with a degree in English. I was hoping to get a job and move away from my hometown. I had friends who were applying to be Pharmaceutical sales reps and so a job in sales appealed to me. Having lived in a college town, and having a father who taught at the community college; college textbook sales sounded like a good fit. I interviewed at few college textbook companies and was eventually hired by International Thomson Publishing. I relocated to Southern California and sold social science textbooks at two- and four-year colleges. I loved that job! There is a wonderful energy to being on campus with students and instructors, and the friendships I made within the company were wonderful. After a couple of successful years I transferred to Northern California and sold business, science, and mathematics textbooks for Harcourt College Publishing. The two companies merged and there were literally hundreds of different titles to sell. I left the industry for a few years to raise my kids. (I also moved back to my hometown.) When Pat McKeague started MathTV and XYZTextbooks, I signed on. I love my job. I have a flexible schedule, which is important when you have small children. And, since we are a small company, it is like going back in time and having all the things I liked about publishing when I first started my career.

Richard Tucker Jones, Sales Director, Region 2

Matthew Hoy, Project Manager

Mr. Hoy earned a B.S. in Journalism from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 1994. He spent 15 years in journalism, working as a reporter, editor and graphic designer at the Lompoc (Calif.) Record, The Daily World (Aberdeen, Wash.), and The North County Times (Escondido, Calif.). He was on the staff of The San Diego Union-Tribune when the paper won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.

IN HIS OWN WORDS: I first attended Cal Poly as an electrical engineering major. After one year, I discovered that while stereos and computers were pretty cool, I didn't really care which way electrons were flowing around a circuit. I used to joke with my journalism colleagues that I was probably the only journalist in America who had actually taken and passed multi-variable calculus -- until I met a sports editor whose degree was in chemical engineering. I thought too many textbook prices were outrageous when I was a student -- my Stewart calculus book cost me more than $80 -- but coming up on two decades later, I'm now seeing those as "the good old days." Lots of things nowadays act as barriers to students getting an education -- expensive textbooks need not be one of them. I'm happy to be working for a company that's doing something to change all that.