OK, so I’m gonna focus on the kind of work I’ve done because it’s much more interesting than money. I got a BS in geology and started working at the end of 1982 just when the oil field took a downturn so there were a lot of unemployed geologists and no one was hiring. My first job was in Dallas as a sampling technician taking soil and water samples to investigate Superfund sites in a five state area, paid a salary of $15K/yr. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but I bought my first new vehicle, a short-bed Toyota pickup for $4,995. That was the first and last vehicle I ever financed.
Did that for a few years and caught on with a company that focused on cleaning up contaminated sites on Air Force and Army bases, worked my way up to project manager, then opened a new office for the company in San Antonio, then relocated to Colorado 25 years ago and managed a regional operation for the same company which had by then grown into a mid-sized engineering and construction company through acquisitions. My business unit had 300 people, annual revenues of $100 M, and dropped 5-10% of that to the bottom line every year. I was responsible for everything within the business unit including profit and loss and we had a pretty good incentive plan so the pay was very good. We did construction, contaminated site cleanup, transportation design, and wastewater design and engineering.
We had some really cool projects along the way. Did an $80 M construction project in Iraq in 2004, building a base for the Iraqi Army so that (we were told) the US could turn over the effort to the Iraqis and bring our men and women home. I went over for a short time, it was like the friggin’ wild wild west and we were in a relatively secure part of the country. Did a $50 M project re-paving and improving the Air Force runway on Shemya Island in the Aleutians, a $25 M project rebuilding 1,100 military family housing units at Keesler AFB after Katrina, a $30 M design project for a segment of I-35 near Austin, and managed the Austin Clean Water Program where the city replaced a lot of its storm sewer system. If anyone is in the Air Force and has had Lasik surgery recently, we also built the Lasik clinic on Lackland AFB. I was very fortunate to have a bunch of really good project managers working for me, that made my job really enjoyable.
That company was bought by one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world, and after that the place was just not a good fit for me. Left it twelve years ago for a much smaller company that does the same thing, took a pay cut but got a big raise in quality of life. Planning to retire in a year or so, tough decision because I like my job and the people I work with. My boss is our CEO and he loves to fish. For a while there, it seemed like every time I’d visit our corporate HQ we’d take a day off and he’d take me fishing and he knows some good spots. We’re still doing really cool projects, and I’m still driving a Toyota pickup, bought it 12 years ago. Put three sons through college, one at VA Tech which was not cheap, but we’re debt-free and all the boys are too. Plenty of nicer stuff we could afford, but just can’t justify it. Probably because both my wife’s and my parents came up during the depression and their frugality rubbed off on us.
