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career changes

Started by petefrom bearswamp, October 03, 2017, 06:22:50 PM

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petefrom bearswamp

Probably been beat to death here but how many of you fellows and girls have had several  different jobs?
I started out of High school at a gas station for 4 months then spent 2-1/2 years as a draftsman apprentice at Alco products Inc a locomotive manufacturer in Schenectady NY
Then attended the NYS Ranger School in Wanakena NY then worked for the Osmose Wood Preserving Co. as a field foreman for 2-1/2 years in the near south and PA.
Next was a State Job with the NYS Conservation Dept as a forest General Foreman and Principal forestry Tech.
This was 16 plus years.
Got tired of the politics (local) and quit and managed an earth moving business for 2 years.
Then worked as a carpenter probably the  most carefree job of all for 2 more years.
Just showed up and did my job.
Next started a forestry consulting business for the next 25 years changing careers again in 2006 at age 69 to a very wealthy sawmill operator which I still do. (Tongue in cheek)
Life has been great so far with a wonderful wife and extended family.
Sunday is my wife's party for me on celebration of my 70-10th birthday with family and some friends.
What more can a fellow ask??
Kubota 8540 tractor, FEL bucket and forks, Farmi winch
Kubota 900 RTV
Polaris 570 Sportsman ATV
3 Huskies 1 gas Echo 1 cordless Echo vintage Homelite super xl12
57 acres of woodland

tule peak timber

High school,
       Army
       electronics specialist
       tried to start an airline
       yacht charter business
       commercial fisherman
       diver
       tried to start an airline
       tried to start a movie studio
       farmer
       wood chopper, for now
       

       

persistence personified - never let up , never let down

Autocar

Bill

coxy

after getting kicked out of school had to work for my uncle (dad wouldn't let me work for him) for a year then went with dad for 4 years then got mad at him and went to work putting up chain link fence for 2 years that got boring  went back with dad worked part time nights and weekends pumping gas and turning wrenches for about 3 years then got in to cutting blue stone on the side  tried the dirt digging side of things and got burnt for 25k went back to logging full time and blue stone cutting part time and been happy every since  8)

caveman

Pete, I can't believe it is already October and your birthday time.  I remember you said some time ago that you were going to stop sawmilling when you turned 80.  Is that still the case or do you have the urge to keep sawing?
Caveman

coxy

Quote from: caveman on October 03, 2017, 08:24:28 PM
Pete, I can't believe it is already October and your birthday time.  I remember you said some time ago that you were going to stop sawmilling when you turned 80.  Is that still the case or do you have the urge to keep sawing?
he is not going to be 80 he said 70-10  that's 60  :D :D

Corley5

  I worked for myself out of high school cutting pallet wood while going to the local community college and then went to work cutting timber for a local logger.  I got hurt pretty bad, broken neck etc, in the fall of the year.  I went back to it after I healed up.  I was lucky.  That spring I got up one morning for work, I was still living at home, and told my mother I couldn't do it anymore and she told me to quit so I did.  That afternoon a school mate called and offered me a job building log homes.  Good timing 8) 8) 8)  I left that gig for a job at a local private wildlife sanctuary and took a couple more college classes then my girlfriend at that time's Dad got me a job as a union construction laborer doing concrete work in the Detroit Area 8) 8) 8) 8)  That career was cut short due to a pedestrian/auto accident.  I was the pedestrian.  Went back to college full time and worked summers for the Michigan DNR's Wildlife Div.  Got my BS, ;) :D, with a history major and a geography minor from Lake Superior State Univ. and went on and did a semester of grad school at Central Michigan Univ.  I had the idea of being a history professor at the local comm. college but got a seasonal career job with the state that fizzled during the Granholm Administration.  One day at a deer check station the school had an ad in the local paper looking for someone with a Master's to teach U.S. history evening courses ::) ::) ;D ;)  When things started to go south with the state I bought a Block Buster firewood processor and went into business for myself so I could be flexible and work for the state when called.  I quit them after a couple years of that when I had a guy working for me and I was going off to work.  Went back to logging which I had always dabbled in and ended up with some old CTL equipment with a five year exit strategy.  Planted a vineyard a few years back and started developing our woodlot into a sugarbush a year ago.  The CTL harvester is about to go on the market.  It'll be five years this coming April when I took delivery of it.  I'm done logging.  Just over it.  The time I spend in and with the equipment is now better spent with my grapes and maple.  I'm staying in the firewood business and have already made adjustments to buy hardwood pulp for processing.  I've got plans for an existing building to put the firewood machine in and have been in contact with Block Buster about a new slightly upgraded machine when my harvester is sold.  It helps that my wife has moved very close to the top of the food chain in her career ;) ;D 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

WV Sawmiller

   Worked family business from age 6 putting up monuments and chain link fences. Told my dad in later years I'd never have had to leave home if he'd have just bought an automatic cement mixer. He said he never needed one as long as I was there.

   Summer I graduated I worked at a Bosie Cascade plywood plant as first paying job making plywood and doing cleanup on weekends. Started Jr college driving a school bus 75 miles each way/150 miles a day M-F and worked plywood plant midnight shift F& Sa.

   Next 2-3 summers worked shipping and finishing dept at St. Regis Paper mill as summer job.

    Graduated Auburn University with degree in Wildlife Biology. Joined USMC and went to OCS, commissioned & served next 13+ years. Got out went to work for Saudi Navy at their logistics center - rode out 1st Gulf War with them.

   Joined Fluor for 22-23 years as a Facilities/camp manger setting up and running remote constructian and military camps in Saudi Arabia, Haiti, Norway, Mongolia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cameroon, and Guinea plus a 4 year hitch around the USA implementing a maintenance management software program we wrote and marketed. Drove a tractor trailer truck over the road for 4-5 months during a dry spell.

   Retired and bought a sawmill and still learning how to saw lumber. Somewhere during all this got married X 40+ years, raised a son and daughter and now enjoying 3 granddaughters and a miracle 9-1/2 month old grandson.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

DR_Buck

I like to say I've been there, done that.  ;D

Quit high school
Worked in a foundry for a couple years for $54 a week.
Installed wall to wall carpeting with my uncle.
Worked in a factory putting threads on screws.
Worked on the 3rd shift frozen pie line at Mrs Smiths Pie Company
Joined Navy to avoid draft
Stayed in 9 years learned electronics and did intelligence stuff. Then got out.
While in, completed high school and got Associates degree.
Went to work doing systems engineering in the aerospace industry  supporting intelligence "stuff"
Changed companies several times then ended up with a major defense contractor building bombs, missiles and flight simulators.
Got my bachelors degree in management and reaffiliated with the Navy Reserve
Got laid off and went to work designing garage door openers for Genie Company.
Landed a systems engineering job building large telescopes (3mtr+) optics equipment and precision motion control platforms.
Got laid off and started a home inspection company.
Went back to work in the intelligence community helping build and operate spy satellites.
Retired from the US Navy Reserve
While doing the intelligence community job above I started raising and marketing beef cattle and started my sawmill business.
After 10 years sold off the cattle business.

And for the finally......   Just sold the farm.  I will be retiring from the intelligence community job in less than 2 months and relocate my sawmill business where I will mill when I want and spend time in my shop making stuff.  8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
Been there, done that.   Never got caught [/b]
Retired and not doing much anymore and still not getting caught

Corley5

  I didn't include the farm ;D  I grew up with a herd of beef cattle.  We sold them in 1990.  Grandpa Whittaker passed away the winter before.  Grandpa Bob also had cattle.  We didn't do much with our place for few years but went into the hay business with Grandpa Bob after he sold his cows.  We made 12,000-14,000 small squares for several years and a year after he passed away I went to round bales.  We were making 500-600 bales per season when I retired from that about five years ago.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Kbeitz

Work as a kid for years on Dads Christmas tree farm.
Right out of school I started working at a carpet mill. That lasted 5 years.
Then I worker at an aluminum extrusion place for 5 years.
Then I made a big mistake and left the aluminum mill to go work at a
Paper processing factory. Boy did I hate that. So I quit there and went
to a furniture wood working factory. I like that but got call in the army
with the draft. When I came out the factory went bankrupt.
So I was back working on the Christmas tree farm for a few years.
Then I moved to Georgia to work in a textile factory as maintenance.
Dad needed help back at the farm so I moved home. I worked the
farm for about 15 years. Then my brother moved back to Pa to
open another textile factory and I worked there as a mill right for
30 years. When it closed up I worked at a fab shop that did everything.
Then I got my dream job at Grizzly Tools as a tech. loved that job.
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

Darrel

Worked part time in a factory during highschool making redwood furniture.  Strayed with them after graduating as planer and moulder operator as well as knife grinding.  Grass was greener on the other side of the fence so quit and went to work in a big mill as their planerman. Hated that job so went to work as a schoolbus driver/janitor/maintainence for Bridgeville school district.  Loved that job but it didn't pay enough so went back to the furniture factory.  Worked there until they went out of business.  Spent the next several years chasing jobs in the lumber industry but the depression was on and jobs kept going away.   About this time I got sick and couldn't work for a couple of years. As I was recovering, I started using the tools I had to build cabinets and expand the business as funds came in. But as many of you know it is very difficult to expand a fledgling business as well as feed your family so at age 39 I went to school and became a registered nurse. Graduated at age 45. As a nurse, I did do patient care, but spend 13 of my 17 years as a nurse teaching certified nurse assistant classes, continuing education and CPR.  Bought my mill 2014, retired from nursing in 2015 and went to work on my sons 300 acre blueberry farm because he needed a welder for a few months and I only wanted to work for a few months. When that gig was up I retired to my mill, bought some land on the edge of the high desert and am building a house with lumber sawn on my mill.
1992 LT40HD

If I don't pick myself up by my own bootstraps, nobody else will.

yukon cornelius

Farm hand
Grocery bagger
Roofer
Asphalt repair
HVAC tech
Pasta manufacturing plant (noodle maker)
HVAC co. Owner
Ice machine company manager
HVAC co. Owner
Firefighter
EMT
Assorted repairer/ restorer
Cedar furniture builder

And most recently
Fire Chief

Variety is the spice of life I guess  ;D
It seems I am a coarse thread bolt in a world of fine threaded nuts!

Making a living with a manual mill can be done!

sandhills

Well I don't have near the resume most of you do, I farm, work at the local livestock market, and have worked full time to moonlighting at neighboring dairies.  I wish there was a few left around I always enjoyed that work (I like animals, they seem to like me, except 629 that is  :D) but they all took the buy out.  Otherwise odd jobs for neighbors feeding cattle and such and concrete work, I hate cement.

Tom the Sawyer

I don't think I was ever without a job, since age 15.  Some were part-time or overlapped but; waiter; laborer at a chemical plant packaging battery acid and herbicides; usher, union projectionist and film technician at several theatres; professional musician and taught private lessons; real estate sales; and law enforcement officer/supervisor/trainer.  Retired in 2009 and bought a sawmill while still teaching at the police academies; started a portable sawmill service in 2010.
07 TK B-20, Custom log arch, 20' trailer w/log loading arch, F350 flatbed dually dump.  Piggy-back forklift.  LS tractor w/FEL, Bobcat S250 w/grapple, Stihl 025C 16", Husky 372XP 24/30" bars, Grizzly 20" planer, Nyle L200M DH kiln.
If you call and my wife says, "He's sawin logs", I ain't snoring.

petefrom bearswamp

Love to see all the varied jobs everyone has had.
forgot to post my adolescent years.
Tree planter, truck farm hand (vegetable farm) general handyman er boy, bane of my dads existence as I hated all my home chores and did my darnedest to avoid them.
Kubota 8540 tractor, FEL bucket and forks, Farmi winch
Kubota 900 RTV
Polaris 570 Sportsman ATV
3 Huskies 1 gas Echo 1 cordless Echo vintage Homelite super xl12
57 acres of woodland

coxy

pete I think all of us never liked to do our home chores but we would help our friends do the same ones with no fuss  :D

petefrom bearswamp

Kubota 8540 tractor, FEL bucket and forks, Farmi winch
Kubota 900 RTV
Polaris 570 Sportsman ATV
3 Huskies 1 gas Echo 1 cordless Echo vintage Homelite super xl12
57 acres of woodland

POSTON WIDEHEAD

Grew up as a Kid on a farm in South Carolina.
Studied lawn care and farm management in school.
Worked at night trimming shrubs while going to school.
After graduation started taking classes in climbing.
Learned to scream at 16.
Married my Nanny at 39.
Had a Kid at 45.
Enjoy hiking mountain sides and walking on cars and trucks.
Now just living out my life on the same farm.
The older I get I wish my body could Re-Gen.

Roxie

Ages 10 - 13 Started my own business babysitting dogs for teachers on vacation.

Age 13 - 17 Curb service waitress at BBQ Diner (took trays of food to drivers doors, on roller skates)

Age 17 - 20 Receptionist/medical typist x-ray department

Age 20 - 25  Accountant construction company

Age 26 - 62 Manufacturing company promoted from controller to CFO

Age 62 to present Amish taxi driver
Say when

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