The GuitarMedic©

 

Feel free to bypass this page.  It is just all about me, but you'll get to know who I am by continuing reading this page.

I ended up being an Engineer in the aerospace industry merely by accident...there was no long-range plan, and it was not something that I planned my career around.  I wanted to be a writer or an artist. I was a kid until I was 18, then also for 22 years after that. I think I started growing up at 40, but today I kind of always still think of myself as the kid in a crowd.

 

I graduated from high school in May of 1969 at 18 years and 2 months of age.  My interests while in school were art and industrial arts.  I also excelled in all my math classes (which I found fascinating), and in all writing and English classes.  My only hobby at that time was music--specifically playing guitar. I had started a band in 1965 called the Sound Invasion, and we improved a lot in the three years that we played together.  Band members were Larry King - Drums, Terry "Buck" Westbrook - Lead Guitar, Donny Shields - Bass Guitar, DeWayne McClannahan - Rythym Guitar, and myself--I sang lead and played rythym guitar.  We were all from central Indiana.  Other members with us for a short time in the later days of the band was drummer Marty Wilson, and an organist (I've forgotten his name)--both from central Indiana.  We actually were one of very few bands in those days that got paid to do weekend gigs at sockhops and local clubs in central Indiana.  Those were great times.  Also about this time I left the Catholic church because I felt in my young mind that there was too much hypocrisy.  I decided then that I was willing to just live out the rest of my life on earth doomed to end up eventually burning in Hell--which was what I was told that my destiny would be.  But I didn't care because I didn't really believe any of it.  Somehow though I always felt like there had to be more.

 

Without going into a lot of detail, you should just know that I was already a father and husband when I graduated high school.  I went to work at what was then Penn Central Railroad as a general laborer late in 1969.  Penn Central was a merger of the former New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad.  It operated from 1968 until 1976--when all its assets were taken over by the U.S. Government and Conrail was formed.  All I really cared about in those days was making a decent living--which I did.  I had a couple of really "gutter" jobs in the summer leading up to the railroad job (working in sweatshops reminiscent of the 1920's) prior to this, so I really appreciated the income and working conditions.  During the period from Fall of 1969 to September 1972, I worked and lived both near Indianapolis, and in central Illinois working for the railroad.  During this time, I went to a Baptist church and was taken by the message one Sunday, and committed to give my life to Christ.  This was different than most experiences I'd had in the Catholic church, but I was still torn--feeling like my decision to accept Christ into my heart in the traditional Baptist way was a sacriledge to the Catholic faith, and so I had some pretty mixed up feelings during that year.  As I continued to attend, I felt like the focus changed from trying to win me over to trying to win others over.  I couldn't understand why, once I had made the decision to follow Christ, people lost interest in my salvation.  So my interest in church again dwindled.  In 1972 I got divorced remarried almost right away and tried a stint at Seaboard Coast Line railroad in Tampa, Florida--which didn't work out (I never even got a paycheck), so I moved back to Indiana.  I also decided during this turbulent period that I was an atheist.  I felt like it was all a big illusion--with religions competing for my membership to simply either add to their member numbers, get my money, or control my life.  I wasn't having any of it any more.

 

When I arrived back in Indiana, I first worked as a shuttle driver for the local railroad--shuttling crews back and forth from the rail yard to local hotels.  Then my dad assisted me in getting an interview at Chevrolet Motor Division's Indianapolis Body Stamping Plant.  The pay was excellent, but the tenure was flakey--frequent layoffs and shutdown times.  The same corporation (General Motors) also owned a local aerospace business unit.  During a layoff, I was offered an opportunity to move to this other business unit--thus my introduction to the aerospace business.  I worked as a machinist, and it seemed to suit me at the time.  I liked it because it was something new to me, and being an avid learner it was interesting for a while learning this new skill, but I was a quick learner and soon I found myself bored with the routine and got itchy feet.  In this job, there was little room for the creative spirit within me that always was so restless to make itself known.  So I bored of the work, and ended up leaving this company after 6 years to go to another.  My marriage had also gone south.  I ended up in the fall of 1978 divorced again, unhappy, and feeling oppressed.  Some six months later, after meeting and dating a great young lady named Julia, I saw an ad in the local newspaper for a company in Arizona that was recruiting experienced machinists.  Although they were looking for more experience than what I had, they interviewed me around mid-March 1979. They seemed satisfied with my skill and knowledge, so they moved me to Arizona.

 

I got married on a Saturday in April (April 14th), and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona on Monday, April 16th.  This was like a new beginning for me.  At this new company, creativity was encouraged--and even admired.  My existing talent was appreciated.  That and my creativity landed me a promotion to Associate Production Engineer.  I was also attending classes at a community college and was in a certificate program.  One of my electives was gas turbine engine theory.  As a Production Engineer, I was able to use my artistic skills on a daily basis.  As a PE my job was to write and illustrate production assembly planning for gas turbine engines.  The gas turbine class helped me to understand "how they worked" and several drafting classes both in high school and college helped me to excel at this job.  I did it for about 2 years.  Meanwhile wifey and I were making a baby.  She (baby) was born 3-18-81, two days before my birthday.  I took them both home on my 30th birthday (what a GREAT birthday gift!).  We stayed in AZ for about another year, then I bent to pressure from my wife to seek employment closer to "home" and family in the midwest.

 

Wifey and I ended up in Michigan.  I took employment at a turbine engine company in a small community near Pontiac.  It was unique...I found my skills were something that were in demand...it was my first experience with someone paying my moving expenses for my engineering skills.  I worked several roles in that company including production assembly support, repair and overhaul support (MRB), and test cell support (engine performance evaluation and fine-tuning).  I also became the primary focal point for maintaining and improving production and overhaul tooling.  This job was never very pleasant because my immediate supervisor's manager lacked people skills.  His demeanor was never very pleasant, and his management style was by intimidation.  I had grown accustomed to the appreciation shown at my former employer, but never heard one word of praise for my efforts in Michigan, (I needed that).  So I began seeking employment back in Arizona.  Meanwhile, we "made another baby".  She was born 9-25-82.  It was then that I realized I had joined the esteemed ranks of DODOs...(dads of daughters only).  Finally in early 1984 I was successful at getting an interview and an offer from my former company--who had undergone some name changes.  So back to Arizona we went!!!

 

The offer I accepted at my former Arizona employer was as a Development Engineer in Military Customer Support.  My first job was to develop and present a complete overhaul tooling package to our military customer for the auxiliary power unit (APU) which we produced for the B1-B bomber program.  I worked at this job for about a year, coming up with concepts for tools, proposing them, getting them designed (contracted), approving the final design, contracting their fabrication, then arranging a proof test before shipping them to the procuring government facility.  This job was good experience in meeting and interfacing with both prime contractors and the military face to face in meetings.  I enjoyed the work, the creativity and the interface.  But I longed to be involved with the engines--first hand. 

 

In my personal life, I was pestered constantly by my wife (who had found Christ) to go to church every time Sunday came around.  She was attending a lady's Bible study and had really become a different person.  I missed my "party chick", but I still supported her in it.  I felt like it was a good thing for her, but I still wanted no part of it.  I began to almost dread that day of the week (Sunday) because I knew she'd be after me to go with her.  However, one Sunday I gave in.  I filled out a card at the church and put it into the offering plate.  It was a check-off list and I checked the one that said "I want to know more about God and His plan for my life."  I was almost a cynical thing to do, because I viewed it as an opportunity to tell whoever might contact me what I really thought about the whole Christianity thing and how they were duping people into thinking there was something more than a rotting body in the ground to look forward to when they die.  But the pastor who visited told me something that made me think, and that began to change my thinking and my heart.  He said that God is sovereign but people are not.  He told me that if I was putting my faith in people and letting people be the ones who influenced me, they would fail me every time.  He explained how Christ died for our sins, and that God loves us all, and that he gave us a free will to choose eternal life or death.  I ended up choosing life.  For some time after this, my wife thought I was still being cynical about the faith, but I had made a sincere decision to follow Christ.  And I have never looked back because...THIS STUFF IS REAL!

 

During this time period my father passed away.  That was an event I will never forget.  My mother also passed away about a year-and-a-half later.  I think that until my father died, I always still thought of myself as a kid...even though I was 35 at the time.  This was a real family tragedy, but a growing experience.  I really think it was then that I was forced to quit being a "kid" and really became a man.  It was a huge adjustment.  Soon after, in my career, an opportunity came my way to move back into the production shops as a Senior Manufacturing Engineer (Spring of 1988).  I was placed in a position to oversee the development of new turbine engine programs--including estimating tooling, completely developing assembly planning, and assisting/troubleshooting assembly problems and submitting changes to facilitate more efficient assembly.  I was selected to go to Taiwan to teach employees at the the Republic of China's military base how to assemble the engines we had developed for them.  We had built five of them in Phoenix, and I was involved with engines #2 thru #5. After this 6-week stint, I returned to Phoenix, and was moved to another new project--a military helicopter engine that was developed and designed all in the metric measurement system.  I worked this program until about fall of 1989, when I moved to another building at the Phoenix engine manufacturer.  Right about that same time, my father-in-law also passed away.  He was a real role-model for me, and it hurt me in so many ways when he died.  I felt my children were cheated because they were so young when he died and really never knew what a great guy he was.  I decided that we needed to be back near my roots in Indiana, so began looking to move back to Indiana.  But meanwhile I was immersed in my new role.  I was appointed to work in support of a machining cell that made engine cases (machined castings--primarily aluminum and magnesium).  I also later moved into another cell that made hot-section parts.  I learned the science of machining, welding, heat treatment, coatings, NDT etc. associated with production of flight hardware.  I also facilitated setup reduction and continuous improvement teams, and developed two new processes at that employer that became standards--machining and inspecting on a vertical milling machine, and grinding on a vertical milling machine.  In 1991 my wife and I made another baby.  Shortly after, I was interviewed in Indiana at Cummins Engines in Seymour, Indiana--birthplace (and one of current homes) of John Mellencamp.  The job didn't materialize, but while there, before returning to Phoenix I met with a small machining company in Avon, Indiana late in the afternoon...with whom I had been doing business at my job in AZ.  I discussed my desire to move back to Indiana, and was in fact looking to move about 5 miles from their location.  Discussions continued with them for another year, and they made me an offer, and ultimately moved us back to Indiana.  But also during this time, some radical changes in my family.  Up to this time I had been a "Dodo" (dad of daughters only).  We planned and had another child in 1991--a SON.  I was no longer a dodo.

 

We arrived in Indiana, the 5 of us, in August of 1993.  My kids started school two days after we arrived.  I was surprised at how different schools were in Indiana...no emphasis on computers.  Computers were taught beginning in kindergarten in AZ.  My daughters who were both in school and who were proficient at computer usage, didn't even have an opportunity to continue on this path...they had no computers, except for the ones located in each classroom exclusively for the teacher's use.  We bought a computer for home use, which provided them the opportunity to insure their computer skills were kept honed (the area schools have since gotten with the program).  Meanwhile, at the Avon, Indiana employer, I was hired as a production manager.  My job was to oversee production scheduling, etc.  The company actually had no production system...they wanted me to develop one.  But after only 7 weeks of employment, a catastropic business downturn almost forced the company into bankruptcy and I found myself unemployed.  I was out of work for about 4 months, and as "luck" would have it, my wife became pregnant again.  Things were not going well, so I took a job as a manufacturing engineer at a small aerospace parts supplier in South-central, IN for a salary that was only about 60% of what I had made in AZ six months earlier, and hence struggled financially for three years.  I worked and learned a lot at this company--particularly about furnace brazing.  It was a great learning ground.  We had another daughter in September of 1994, so that brought our family total to 6 counting me, the wife, and the four kids.  One day after about 2-1/2 years of employment there things began to look up.  A gentleman I worked with provided my resume to a contract agency he had contacted, and within two days I had an interview with a large turbine engine manufacturer in central Indiana, and ended up getting hired.  I went away from my interview and got on my knees and thanked my God for his goodness.  My last day at the South-central Indiana company was January 3, 1997.

 

I started to work at the company in Indianapolis in January 1997, but this was a short tenure.  I only worked there for 3 months before I got a phone call from a Quality Manager in AZ asking if I was interested in going back to work for the company I worked for in AZ.  I said I was interested, and about 2 weeks later I received a call to set up an interview.  I interviewed, and was offered employment as a Field Quality Engineer--a new position that was being created to oversee and support contracted vendors of production parts (Supplier Quality).  This process took about another 3 months (to get hired) so I started the new job) so I started the new job at the end of June 1997.  I was able to stay in central Indiana, and work out of my home.

 

I have worked now as a Field Quality Engineer for my 12th year.  I never had experience in Quality Assurance, but found it an easy role to assume because, given my extensive background, I knew all the ins and outs about how parts were made.  I picked up the knowledge of compliance fairly quickly.  I have since earned my Six-Sigma Greenbelt, am a Certified Quality Auditor,  and a Certified Manufacturing Engineer.  I am a senior member of Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and a senior member of the American Society of Quality.  I am active in local chapters of both organizations.  I attend and am a member of Church@Main in Brownsburg, Indiana.

 

In 2006 I went back to school, full time, at Western Governor's University (WGU).  I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in April 2009.  I did not "Walk" at commencement exersizes in Salt Lake City, Utah--although I initially wanted to and my kids had all told me they would come.  It was still one of my proudest moments...the culmination of a life of pursuing but never achieving my secondary education degree.  If you are looking for a fully accredited flexible program for earning your bachelor's degree online, studying at your own pace, you should consider visiting www.wgu.edu.  I plan to retire in 2018 at the ripe age of 66--just ready to begin enjoying the next great phase in my life.  At home, I am the father of four.  I am active in volunteer work for the school corporation in the town where I live--primarily working with the band programs.  In Summer months, I sometimes enjoy gardening (mostly tomatoes).  All year 'round I enjoy playing stringed instruments (primarily guitars), repairing instruments, and spending time with my family.  After years of marriage, some of our children are themselves now married.  In the picture above, I was hamming it up for the camera with my wife while visiting with our daughter and her husband in Fort Worth, Texas in 2006.  We had such a nice visit and also took in sights at San Antonio during this trip.

 

In 2008, we became grandparents with the birth of our first grandchild. Abby is a real treat to have around.

 

I plan to transition in my retirement to the repair and maintenance of stringed instruments (thus "The Guitar Medic".  I studied guitar lutherie under the mentorship of luthier, Mel McCullough, since the Summer of 2007. I have engaged in repair activity--finding my specialty to be restoration and structural repairs of acoustic instruments--and have repaired and restored a variety of violins, autoharps, guitaros, acoustic guitars, dulcimers, etc etc.  I ramp up in this activity with a small business when I retire, but for now I take in a minimum amount of work due to the demands of my "day job".