I originally wrote this the summer of 2007 on a 'myspace' page. Rather than retell the story, I'm just copying it and will add onto the end with the rest of the story.
my jobs
pretty bored right now, at work, so I thought I'd type about myself.First job was working for my dad. He had an air taxi in Cooper Landing Alaska on the Kenai river. We'd fly people out to lakes and rivers to go hunting, fishing and camping. I guess I started when I was about 12-14 or so. I was a dockhand, cleaned and fueled the plane, pumped the floats (a never ending task on a float plane) and carried peoples gear around. At about 16yo dad expanded the buisness into a fishing lodge as well as an air taxi.
This brought about a whole slew of extra duties. Now we were giving people food and a place to stay, so theres lots of cleaning to be done. Dishes, laundry and vacuuming all the time. We quickly outgrew or place on the river and moved into a larger house. That brought a much bigger yard to be tended as well. So now we're taking people on guided fishing trips. So now I'm a fishing guide as well. It's not bad work if you can get around the bugs and don't mind the occasional bear. Every now and then you get a decent tip.
At 17 I was tired of the family buisness and quit. Actually, I had quit many times, in addition to being fired many times. It's tough working for family I guess.
Now that I think about it, I took another job when I was 15 or 16, after quiting the family buisness. I was a dishwasher and busser at the Sunrise Inn in Cooper Landing. That job sucked. I lasted 2 days. I think I only went in the second day because I knew I'd get a free meal, anything on the menu. That job sent me back to dads with my tail between my legs... I suddenly liked working at the lodge again.
At least for the rest of that year. Back to my 17yo story. When I was 17 I somehow got a job working for the Tawah Trading Company. Fancy name for the new and improved Russian River Ferry. The ferry was unpowered, it used the hydraulic force of the river to push it back and forth. You just put it sideways in the current and it scoots across the river, like a sailboat in the wind. It was called the Russian River Ferry, but it didn't cross the russian at all. With hip boots you could walk across most parts of the russian. The ferry crossed the Kenai river to provide easy accses to the confluence of the russian and kenai rivers. People fished for Salmon and trout there. Mainly salmon. Lots of salmon, LOTS of fishermen. They call it combat fishing because the bottom 2 miles of the russian and the first mile of the Kenai below that would be packed with people fishing. You hardly had room to cast, and many people would get injured by flying hooks and weights every day. I think more people injured themselves than were injured by others...
My job, as the sole deckhand for the ferry was to collect peoples tickets (it was $3 RT) and let them on the ferry, untie and push off. Upon reaching the other side, I would attempt to cushion the docking and tie off the ferry, then assist them in disembarking. Repeat for the return trip. It was pretty fun, I did that for two years (summer only, same as the family buisness).
Now I go to college, in Anchorage, looking to earn a profesional piloting degree. It proves to be financially un-obtainable for me, so I kinda do nothing for a while. Got a job at Blockbuster Video for a while... there was one of my career highlights. I think my friend Kyle worked there, thats probably why I got that job. Met another friend there, James. Besides them the job was worthless.
For a few years I worked at the lodge in the summer and kinda went to school during the winter. The next winter I got a job at Burlington Coat Factory. Worked there for a year, Started in Mens clothing sales... basicaly just hang up clothes and try to look busy. Worked in recieving for a while. That entailed opening boxes and hanging up clothes. Much more fast paced though. Then I tried out being a cashier. This appealed to my numbers side, I've always enjoyed math, and there was a couple cute girls there. I wasn't smooth enough to ask the girls out and the counting quickly became dull. Then my register somehow came up $100 short. Dunno how or where that happened, they wrote me up and told me I was on probation, obviously didn't believe my pleas of innocence. I asked to be transfered back to mens or recieving to no avail. A few weeks later I was fired for being short a quarter. I should have quit after the $100 fiasco but I was to lazy to look for another job.
I struggled for a while, even tried door to door sales with that wholesale junk. That was worse than washing dishes. Didn't even go 2 days at that.
I was kind of a shade tree mechanic and car enthusist, my girlfriend at the time encouraged me to apply for a job at a car parts store. So I did, and got a job at Grand Auto. By this time I had pretty much quit school, nothing seemed to hold my intrest long enough for me to get a good grade. I enjoyed working at Grand, even though they were kind of the 'walmart' of parts stores. I worked there for a year or two, then took my epic around the country road trip. When I returned, approx 6 month later, I got a job at B&C auto.
B&C was a real parts store, I felt a little better about working there. My mechanical aptitude helped, I quickly moved to kind of an assistant managers position.
For a little extra money I took a night stockers job at Fred Meyers. They put me in the freezer the first night, I froze my hands off. Stacking ice cream. The second day I was back in the freezer so I quit. Enough of that.
I helped my girlfriends dad fix her car, he was a lab tech for the college at the aviation mechanic school and saw that I enjoyed working on stuff. He knew I had some aviation background and suggested that I try the A&P program, to become an aircraft mechanic. It had never really occoured to me but sounded like a reasonable idea so I enrolled the following semester.
I was only going part time, still working full time to pay bills and buy toys. After about a year I saw that it was going to take forever as a part time student. I was doing well in school and decided to try a bit harder. I cut my work schedule back to about 24 hours a week and upped my course load to 19 credits. I was at school basicaly 9-5 mon-thr, then working fri-sun plus a student loan.
About my 5th semester I took a part time job at Northern Air Cargo as a mechanics helper. It was 6pm-midnight m-f in addition to the 24-30 hours at B&C and the now 21 credits I was taking at school. The only way I could pull it of was I could retain enough from the lecture and class time at school that I didn't need to work on anything at home. My grades were starting to show though. To top it all off the tranny in my truck blew up about two weeks before finals. I couldn't afford to pay to have it fixed, and wouldn't consider public transportation, so I dove into rebuilding it myself. That took up to many of my evenings, so NAC fired me. No biggie, I didn't like it there anyways. Plus I made more $ at B&C.
In 1998 I finally finished the A&P program and was a real mechanic. I worked the summer for a friend on Lake Hood. It was somewhat of a seasonal job, so in the fall I was without work. I was a little turned off of aviation at the time so I talked to Eddie, the owner of Northern 4x4 (where I had become something of a regular) if he could use an experienced counterman he said he probably could, after his cousin left town in about 3 months. In the mean time, I ran into an aqcuaintance from B&C who asked me to come work for him at Karluk Auto parts... I agreed. After 2 months of working there I got tired of the BS and cigerette smoke so I quit.
Then I went to Northern, Sold parts and awnsered phones there for a couple years. Had a good time and made some really good friends. Also built some pretty nice vehicles...
While at northern, Someone I went to school with stopped by and asked why I wasn't using my A&P, and told me that Era Helicopters (where they were working) was hiring. I happen to not be getting along with one of the mechanics at northern at the time (still am not) so I put in my notice and applied at Era.
I started work at Era in '01 and worked there until there 'corprate restructuring' after being bought by seacorp led to a lot of people being laid off. I told them I wasn't leaving Alaska so they gave me a months pay and said see-ya.
While working for Era I had a really good time and did a lot of stuff. I worked oilfield support in Nikiski and Deadhorse (north slope) maintaining 2 Bell 212's.
I worked at our Denali Tour Base maintaining AS350 Astars...
And I worked for 2 summers maintaining a 212 for forest fire support in Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Nevada.
So, After Era I went back and talked to my friend Eddie @ Northern 4x4. I managed to get a job there, as a mechanic this time. I did everything from oil changes and tuneups to lift kits, supercharger installs and gear changes. Ed sold the Retail portion of the business to this fellow Matt. Well, Matt had a really weird business ethic, OK, maybe not weird. Lets say poor. We see less and less business, the shop is making smaller and smaller orders. Then no orders. I work there and can't even get parts. Customers are wandering around trying to find their parts, their money, or matt. Noone can find any of the above. Theres some shady deals and the whole thing gets a bit to much on the illegal side of things. I leave. Eddie does the same shortly after. I can't recommend giving them any business anymore, which is sad because it used to be about the best shop in town.
OK, here I am unemployed again, so what do you do? Nothing. Because, as usual, a job falls into my lap. A friend I used to work with at Era calls me up and asks me to come work for him at Evergreen Helicopters. OK, sure.
And that brings us to now, after 6 months @ Evergreen I'm sitting in Delta Junction maintaining a 212 for forest fire support. And it's been raining just enough to keep the fires around here down, so we've done very little. Except me. I typed.
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That was then, June of 2007. Now, it's November 2012 and I still work for Evergreen, longest I've ever been at the same job. Ever. I've been on utility contracts, fires all over Alaska and the west coast, Medevac Contracts, USPS Delivery Contracts, Geological/drilling contracts, HeliSki contracts, offshore support, Military Dustoff and whatever else I can't remember at the moment.
I've sold my house in Alaska and Cara (wife) and I moved to Hawaii, I've been working this contract exclusively for about a year now. We live in Mililani on Oahu, I work at Wheeler and Bradshaw Army airfields.
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