What is your occupation, employment, job or profession?

[rfolsom]

University educated as an electrical and computer engineer. Never finished the degree, however...

 

Bob

[wabass]

i have a hardwood flooring business in Washington state, i'm 36 with 2 boys a wife of 10 years and a dog, i build models, furniture, fishing ( as in fishin') boats, hunt and camp. no complaints!

[fnkershner]

Wabass - Where in WA are you located? I am the president of the ship modeling club in Seattle. PM me with contact info and I will add you to our mailing list. I would like to invite you to join some of our meetings.

[marktiedens]

Been an auto mechanic since 1969.I have been at the new car dealership I am at now for 30 years.Hope to retire in a couple of years - cars are getting very hard to work on.

[JMaitri]

Currently I am a US Govt. auditor (NO, not the IRS--didn't want family and/or friends to disown me! ). Mainly the audit work I do involves reviews of the US Medicare and Medicaid health programs--for each dollar we spend on doing our work, we re-coup 6 dollars of public money (in other words, we recover more money than we spend...kinda rare for our govt! ).

 

Before that, I was a civilian bomb disposal technician; before that, I was a US Marine (infantry and explosive ordnance disposal).

 

My degrees are in English, Behavioral Science, and Accounting.

 

Jay

[robboxxx]

Well.... I "did" the academy of fine arts and graduated in art history and photography. After that I did another art academy and graduated in graphic design. Worked as a press photographer and that took me around the world (not always the most glamorous places). As soon as computers came available to the public (Apple, actually never worked with windows) I seemed to have some sort of 5th sense for them and was "discovered" by a local Apple dealer and started working for him as a problem solver. From there I moved to a large print house where I'm the head of the pre-press department. I'm still working there as a problem solver and I help (international) clients of the print house with software and application problems (think color management, Calibration, Adobe photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign and the likes). 

 

My 2 main hobby's are caving (that is crawling around in caves) and I do this on a weekly basis. I'm also the president of a organization that preserves and studies underground limestone quarries and is part of the Natural Historic Guilt (similar to the British National heritage) There are about 200 of those quarries in the region and some date back to the 13th century. Some of them are big labyrinths. Maintaining them and running the organization takes a lot of my time so modeling time is limited. 

 

Oh…. and it takes also a lot of time to maintain an 13th century house.

 

Recently I'm getting more and more back into art history.

[Michiel]

Theoretical Physicist

[Spaceman Spiff]

Have held a number of jobs - but my specialization areas are techinical writer and training specialist. I am married to an officer in the U.S.N., and since we have been married we have moved a number of times due to rotation. Fortunately, I have been able to find work in my speciality areas each time. Now, we are at our last duty station - which just happens to be the area we were planning to move to after she retires - and I have gotten a great job in the company I hope to retire from and also within my field.

[Craigie65]

Hi

I am a Chartered Accountant, but I really want to be a lion tamer. The more mature out there will understand. I have worked for a number of companies including the UK's rail infrastructure owner - from railways to being a financial adviser on major UK transport infrastructure for the last decade or so.

[michael mott]

Retired exhibit designer/fabricator and Architectural and engineering modelbuilder.

 

Now I can relax and work on my stuff.

 

Michael

[popeye the sailor]

I can see now where you got your fabrication skills from Michael 

 

 

I've done mechanical work all my life........grew up on a farm,  doing all the fun chores.....working on the equipment and cars.  I worked at a garage for about 15 years,  and did the warehouse rag for a while,  until it bored the heck out of me.   now-a-days, I can be found at the Wal-mart Transportation shop in Raymond N.H.  working on trailers,  keeping them things fit for the road.   every once in a while,  I work on the trucks......changing light bulbs,  brake work,  and wheel seals.  I leave the rest of the grunt work up to the guys that make more than me.........why should I have all the fun .......LOL!  I still have around ten years till retirement.....I make the best of it

[pompey2]

Mech Engineering Designer. Currently running a design office in the Oil & Gas industry but also worked in special purpose machines, semi con and other industries.

[runner63]

I am with Crackers, retirement is the only way to go.

 

Been retired for 6 years

 

runner63

[fnkershner]

I can't wait to get there. Still have 6 yrs to go in the race. All I want to do is finish.

[ccoyle]

What is this 'retirement' of which people speak?

[trippwj]

What is this 'retirement' of which people speak?

 

I have teenage children...this strange concept called "retirement" may never arrive!

[Yambo]

What is this 'retirement' of which people speak?

 

 

Don't worry too much about it, when you're retired you never get a day off.  

[captainbob]

Retired exhibit designer/fabricator and Architectural and engineering modelbuilder.

 

Now I can relax and work on my stuff.

 

Michael

Michael,

 

Glad you finally made it.

 

Bob

[twintrow]

I have teenage children...this strange concept called "retirement" may never arrive!

Soon those children will become young adults and begin giving you grandchildren....then your official job will be babysitting, and I might add the most wonderful time in your life.  My wife and I babysit our granddaughter 3-5 days a week and I am absolutely amazed at how enjoyable it is.  I've been retired 6 years now, The granddaughter is 3 now and the until she came along it was pretty boring being able to do anything I wanted.

Oh, and my 95 year young Mother also lives with us, so almost like two children ;o)  i mean that lovingly though.

 

Tom

Edited July 20, 2013 by twintrow

[scottpollack]

ive been a trucking dispatcher for the last 20 years. before that I was a carpenter's apprentice. as a side job / hobby I build colonial reproduction furniture with only hand tools and old fashioned traditional joinery. I was almost escorted off of the property of Monticello , Thomas Jefferson's home , for touching the furniture. seems they don't appreciate you opening things to see how it was constructed. lol!

 

tom ( twintrow)  sun city huh? im in phoenix. practically neighbors

[Mahuna]

I managed large data centers for about 30 years, then became an independent consultant since 2000, helping companies manage large computer infrastructure changes.  

 

I retired in March of 2012, a little earlier than planned due to a couple of health issues.  That's when I started ship modeling (my other hobby is bird carving).  I finished the Jolly Boat and the Phantom, and now I've moved on from kits to beginning some scratch building.  I'm currently working on a modified version of the Mayflower from Chuck's plans.

 

I 'unretired' in April of this year when I was offered the opportunity to work on a one-year contract that will give us a little more financial security (and will also help me pay for some great new tools).  There's some travel involved, but I still find I can put in about ten hours a week in the hobby.  Next time I say I'm finished working it will be permanent, and my 'work week' will be spent in my shop.

[Moonbug]

I'm a retired US Air Force combat journalist, and now I am a partner at a Public Relations firm where I work from home and have plenty of opportunity to procrastinate work and sneak out to the shop to tinker with builds.  :-)

 

- Bug

[AON]

Hello all,

 

Almost everything you want to know about me can be found at  http://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanone/         

 

Attached is an much older photo of me desperately searching for my last beer ticket tucked away in an inside pocket.

 

Alan O'Neill

[Kerry]

Hello all,

although i am a new member to this site, i thought i would reply o this post. I collect and dispose of hazardous waste i have been doing this for about 18 years - i find this hobby is great when my hands stop shaking - however i seam to spend more time looking at build logs than i do building

cheers

[rpeteru]

rpeteru

Background was on the water at age 3 on rhine river barges, old man was the mate. Next time at sea was 9 yrs old migrating to the new country. Gods own Oztralia. Naval service from 1967-1973. Merchant navy from 1974 till present as serving ships engineer. my father built marine models I still have some of those and models of my own building. In the dockyard presently, scratch-build His Thai Majesties ship Ayuthia circa 1941. Frigate hull mounting 4 x 8" guns, so called pocket cruiser, pictures during build taken, build log not compiled. 3 x other kits done no pictures

[flying_dutchman2]

The members here on MSW have very interesting careers.

The following is asummary of my background.

My father worked for the Dutch Diplomatic Service, so from age 1 to 21 I lived and went to school in; Bonn, The Hague, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bagdad, NeW York, Bonn, Accra (Ghana), Utrecht (Holland) and Trinidad & Tobago - WI.

When I lived in Singapore I was 5 years old and I looked at all the flowers and insects and knew right there that plants and insects was my calling.

After that (age 22), Alabama, USA, Amsterdam, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Kuwait and back to Amsterdam, then on to New Jersey and now in the suburbs of Chicago.

Besides having a screwed up schooling background, which is the one of the disadvantage of moving around , in these countries I went to Dutch, British, German and American schools. In Utrecht I, got a 3 yr. degree at a horticultural school (Rijks Middelbare Tuinbouw school).

After some more traveling I went to Alabama Ag. & Mech. Univ. in the US and got a BSc in Agronomy and a MSc in Plant & Soil Science with an Entomology minor (insects).

Because at that time I was a foreign student (Dutch) I could not work in the USA. Went back to Amsterdam and landed a job with Ballast Nedam (One of the biggest construction companies in the world) and they send me to Saudi Arabia. I was the senior environmental engineer - and was on the team that designed a $31,000,000 - 4 acre palace garden for a Prince (Bandar bin Sultan). After that I was the Lead horticulturist that maintained the garden.  Did a another design for a sheik which was smaller and less money.

At the same time I worked on preliminary landscaping reports involving landscaping a 385 square mile offensive military base. This base is somewhere in the middle of the Empty Quarters. Desert in Saudi.

Ballast Nedam built all the militairy bases in Saudi that the armed forces used in Gulf war I and II. Due to the highest security access available to some company employees, some of us would sit in the shade with a cooler in a chair next to the runway and watch the fighter jets come and go.  AWSOME

After Saudi, back to Amsterdam and I was over qualified in every landscape/horticultural job I applied to. Ended up working with integrating UNIX, Macintosh and Windows operating systems at a University in Amsterdam (Vrije Univ.).

Moved to New Jersey and worked as a manager in a garden center, fertilizer and chemical sales to golf courses. After a couple of years this field tanked and got several IT certifications (MCSE, CNA & Novell) and worked as a systems admin., network admin., helpdesk tier 3. I was riding high until the dot com bust and went back to horticulture.

Moved to the Midwest and to jump start my IT career got another BSc degree from Purdue in computer networking. It worked for a while but ended back in Horticulture. So for the last 6 years I have been managing a garden center.

Boats. In an early age I was always reading about general Dutch maritime history. The jachts, the flat and round bottom boats and later on VOC.
I did plastic ships first and in the mid 80's I build a couple of Dutch boats. I didn't touch that hobby for 20 years (graduate school and work).

95% of my interests is in building Dutch ships and boats. That is what I am working on these days. I build the Bounty because it reminded me of the books I read about it and I still need the build the "Beagle" as Charles Darwin is one of my heroes.

Thank you for reading.
Marc

[clloyd]

I'm a physiotherapist (physical therapist for the americans).  Self employed, running my own practice for the last 12 years.

 

Colin

[Sjors]

Marc,

 

Now I understand why you are so familiar with the Dutch things !

Your roots are from Holland !!!!!!

 

[usedtosail]

I graduated from college with degrees in Photographic Science, an industry that is now pretty much defunct (except for the optics part) because of digital imaging. I never really worked in that field, as I started working for the Air Force as a civilian and quickly got into military simulation and training - flight simulators, then ground combat simulations. I have worked for government contractors for most of my career after those first years with the AF. I have specialized in the representation of the physical environment within simulations, and I have been doing that for over 30 years now, mostly as a computer programmer, but also some management and business development. So, I model the world for the military during the day and ship modelling at night and on weekends. it is a good mix as I don't get to build things with my hands at work.

[SGraham]

I've been teaching high school English in Southern California since 1985. My students range from long-term English learners who are functionally illiterate in both of their languages to Advanced Placement literature and composition students who are taking college-level coursework in high school.

 

Steve