When this thread first started years ago I gave the short answer, so I will fill the some of the blanks...
I started out in high school working for wheat farmers and cattle ranches. Dreamed of being a full time ranch hand and riding the range..... but it only took a couple summers working in the fields, building fence, bucking bales, and driving old farm tractors, to figure out that there must be a much easier way to make more money.....
After high school graduation I went off to college with the idea that I would play baseball and be a physical ed teacher and/or math teacher. One college year of chasing tail and drinking beer it was obvious that wasn't going to work.....
So I enrolled in the local community college and completed a two year associates degree in Heavy Equipment /Diesel Mechanics.
After college I kicked around the Spokane and North Idaho area working in various engine shops, construction companies, and equipment dealer shops for a couple years.....
Helped build a couple real cool race cars which was super fun.
Nov 1990 I was laid off for the winter and looking for a job. In those days is was all about the classified ads in the newspaper for jobs and I was sending resumes to every place that needed a mechanic. One day a guy calls me and asks if I am interested in working in Dutch Harbor, Alaska fixing heavy equipment, forklifts, cranes ect... They would fly me to Alaska, provide room and board, and fly me home again at the end of a successful 6 mo contract. I jumped on it and figured I could stand on my head for 6 months....
I ended up living in Dutch Harbor full time, year around (except vacations of course) for the next 12 years. After a few years I started getting out of the day to day shop mechanic, and started more field mechanic work traveling all over the Aleutian Islands, Western Alaska and operating more equipment, driving trucks, running cranes.
In 2003 I had an opportunity to transfer to Seward, Alaska and still maintain all my same wages/benefits and start working more as a Longshoreman and less mechanic work. But the work was very seasonal with super busy, good money summer time, and super slow winters. My wife and I jumped on it since we would have a road to our house!! Even though is's the end of the road, it's still a road which she can actually drive to the mall if she wants, and my son had far more school opportunities on the road system also.
But, with the slow Alaska winters came the need for me to get a winter job. In 2005 I went to work for a company that has the contract with the AIr Force for the operations and maintenance of 17 Long Range Radar Stations (old DEW LINE stations) located all over the State of Alaska. Operating and maintaining heavy equipment, power plants, handling cargo, airfield operations, everything I was experienced at, and it was the perfect winter job which still allowed me to work the busy summer season at home....
Then in 2011 I obtained my Mobile Crane Operators Certification (NCCCO) and started almost exclusively operating mobile cranes on the docks for the cruise ships that come to Alaska in the summer. Making more money driving cranes allowed me to get as far away from turning wrenches as I could. I quit working on the radar stations in the winter and started staying closer home year around.....
But then I started to get bored....
In Dec 2018, I accepted a job in Antarctica operating mobile cranes, heavy equipment, and maintaining their ice runway and 11 miles of ice road to the ice airfield. It was not real good money, but just enough. Mostly it promised to be lots of adventure, and the opportunity to do what I like in one of the most remote places on earth.
I took a one year leave of absence from my job at home and I landed at McMurdo Station in Antarctica In January 2019. I agreed to a "winter over" contract (seasons are opposite of ours in AK) and stayed though the second week of October 2019. (Yes, I have an awesome and very understanding wife!!)
All with the idea that I would take the Alaska winter 2019/20 off and look forward to a good Cruise Ship season for summer 2020. The best laid plans..... COVID!!!!
It was obvious by March 2020 that the cruise ships were not coming to Alaska for the summer that and I better get another job.....COVID!!!
I called the company that I had worked for previous on the Radar Stations and they were kinda luke warm. They asked me to send my resume.....
Looking for work in April 2020 with a million other unemployed folks was super unfun....... COVID!!!
But as luck would have it I was offered another Antarctica contract for the Austral summer (Oct-Feb) and maybe extending into the winter (2021). Perfect!!!.... or so I thought. I would make the most of the 2020 AK summer (fishing, hunting, camping), then go back to Antarctica in the fall (Oct) for Austral summer season....
Then they shut down all Antarctica projects for the year and decided to only keep a minimum skeleton crew....COVID!!! And they terminated my contract....COVID!!!
May 2020 back to looking for work with several million more folks now.....COVID!!!
June 1st, I get a call from the Radar Station company and they want to know if I would be willing to go to work ASAP. They had people that couldn't travel, people that wouldn't travel, people with COVID!!....They really needed AK residents that didn't have to travel to/from outside the State....COVID!!!
So now I'm back to work as a Relief Station Mechanic on the Alaska Radar System. Since I have started back working in June I have been to Indian Mountain Air Force Station, Cape Romanzof Air Force Station twice, Tatalina Air Force Station, and I am currently typing this from Cape Newenham Air Force Station.....and lots of work planned for the upcoming summer. It kinda sucks being gone from home again, but not has much as not working. So here I am....really because of...COVID!!!!
And my side hustle the last couple years has been short term swing trading (not day trading) and I am trying to figure out how to make that work so I have some productive side income when I retire......The last half of 2020 was amazing....COVID!!
Whew......So I guess thats the long answer....
