Published by Southern Illinois University Press and continually in print since 1987, the book has been revised each decade to stay current with the rapidly changing field of technical theatre.

Glerum's work as an educator and advocate of standardized techniques for stage rigging led him to be considered at the forefront of improved safety for theatrical riggers and stagehands.

As the youngest person ever hired at that time by what then was known simply as “The Players,” Glerum toured Germany, Austria, and Italy, entertaining U.S. military troops with Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew.

[4][5] Glerum was hired as an assistant professor in Seattle University's Drama Department in the School of Arts and Sciences in 1965 after serving as its part-time stage carpenter and designer for two years, during which he worked full-time at the USPS.

As the sole earner for his growing family, he moonlighted during the mid-1960s and early 1970s with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union (IATSE) Local 15 in Seattle as a part-time extra.

In that capacity he oversaw technical requirements of the soon-to-be-built Evan P. and Marion Helfaer Theatre, consulting on both front-of-house and backstage design for the teaching and performance spaces.

It was during this period that he began writing Stage Rigging Handbook, having witnessed first-hand for more than two decades what he considered a universal need for stage-rigging safety protocol.

Soon after the release of Stage Rigging Handbook[1] in April 1987, he founded his company, Jay O. Glerum, Inc. on July 15, 1987, to sort out the increasing demands for his services as a consultant.

While Glerum was at the University of Washington, campus development and strategic placement of new buildings meant the removal of its small arena theater, the Penthouse, built in 1939 by the WPA and the first theater-in-the-round in America.

When he turned sixty, Glerum determined that he wanted to spend the remainder of his working life focusing on safety inspections and master classes.

He upheld his agreement to teach a pre-conference two-day master class for United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) at the March 2014 conference in Fort Worth, Texas, despite a terminal illness.