Fought the Vietnam war with a screwdriver 67 to 70 keeping B52's and KC135's flying for the USAF TAC after "gracefully" leaving Purdue with some credits for that first semester. Came back to my family home in Bloomington IN to finish at collage (I KNOW, Purdue is in Lafayette IN [that's where I was "graceful" in my leaving]: but I was born and raised in Bloomington) work with the electrics and electronics I had learned working on Auto Pilots. It would be a decade before I found a job where I got to work on another 50 million dollar machine like a B52, worked fixing things like electric forklifts and locomotives.

While living in New Orleans I became a Rig Electrician (because I knew GE752's and D79's from working for Amtrak there in NO) in 1978 and been working/building Drilling Rigs ever since. Built all 4 of the DW [Deep Water] Rigs (including the DWH that had the blowout and killed 11 while working for BP) for R&B while I worked for GE where I taught the GE GenIII and MicroDrill schools for Rig Electricians when I wasn't doing the DW rigs for GE.

Build many rigs and repaired a LOT more since, now just hanging out until something comes up.