In school I excelled at several things. Especially science and shop classes. My dream job was to become a field biologist for the TWRA, but seeing as how there are rarely ever any positions available for that job I decided it was best not to pursue that. I trained for 4 years as a machinist, but at the time it was a hard profession to get into around here. Most places were laying off, some were closing down completely, and the ones that were hiring were looking for 10+ years of experience. So…. I went to work as a millwright. There I did everything from building, installing and repairing machinery and pipe lines to maintaining furnaces, paint lines and shot blasting machines to fabrication. Then I did production welding for several years. For the last 12 years or so I’ve been an industrial maintenance technician. I do a little of everything in this job. Electrical, mechanical, pneumatics, hydraulics, plc’s, welding, fabrication and machining. I’ve managed to work my way up to lead mechanic. I also do some mechanical engineering for them. It can be a very rough and stressful job, but I do get some satisfaction out of it.