You can draw some obvious comparisons between teaching and sales. With the right combination of training, personality and belief in what you offer, members of either profession can stand up in front of a group of people and sell even the most skeptical on the advantages and benefits of the product — or subject.

Marianne Viscardi is further blurring the distinction between the two callings. By day, a business teacher at Union Springs High School in Cayuga County, Viscardi moonlights doing commercials that air on cable TV throughout central New York.

"It's just something I do a couple of times a year," said the current pitchwoman for The Carpet House of Auburn, who has also lent her voice — and often her presence — to TV spots selling everything from menswear to collision repair.

She was offered the gig three years ago by Steve Gage, a neighbor who produces local TV commercials. "He told me I had a voice that stands out," Viscardi said.

It's an authoritative, trustworthy voice that has been honed through 20 years in the classroom. There, Viscardi teaches mathematics and financial applications, career and financial management, college-level classes in microcomputer applications and principles of business, as well as accounting and keyboarding.

She also finds time to serve as secretary of the 90-member Union Springs Teachers Association, headed by Mike Kenyon.

Gage often casts teachers in his commercials and public service ads for Time-Warner Cable. While he's admittedly more interested in the talent's looks or voice than he is in their profession, Gage says teachers like Viscardi bring something extra to the set.

"Her teaching experience, I think, helps her face the camera as if she was facing her class," he said. "Teachers do have to 'sell' themselves to their students, and that comes through in commercials."

"It goes hand in hand," said Viscardi, who still gets a boost from seeing herself on TV and being recognized on the street.

"It's fun," she said. "And it puts gas in the car."