In 1967, at the urging of a friend, I went with him to Fullerton Airport to take an introductory flying lesson.  When the short lesson was over and we had landed, I told my friend, this is what I am going to do with my life - fly.  That flight was the beginning of approximately one and a half years of intensive flight training toward earning a commercial pilot certificate and a flight instructor certificate.  All this training was done through Gini's Flying School at Brackett Field.

 The day after I passed my initial flight instructor flight test, I was hired at John Bassie's Flight School at Meadowlark Airport, Huntington Beach.  This was an interim position until a slot was available at Gini's as a flight instructor.  Within a few weeks I left John Bassie's school and started at Gini's Flying School.  This was in 1968.  I stayed at Gini's until 1971 and left to work as the chief flight instructor at Cable Air in Upland, CA.  I continued to work at Cable Air either full-time or part time through about 1975.

During my time at Cable Air I also found several individuals or companies that employed me for my pilot service.  There were two significant individuals that stand out.  One was a Superior Court Judge who used my services to fly him and his friends on business and pleasure trips.  The other was providing pilot service for a company that was building motels in the Pacific Northwest.

In 1975 I was hired by the FAA after taking a civil service examination for air traffic control.  By that time I was nearly 33 and was just a few months over the age allowed to be hired into an air traffic control tower or a radar facility.  I was sent to flight service to be trained as a pilot weather briefer and a weather observer.  My first training facility was Fresno FSS.  While assigned to Fresno, I was sent to a five months school at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City.  After completing the training at Fresno, my first permanent duty station was Tonopah, Nevada.  Then later I transferred to Salinas FSS and finally to Ontario FSS.  During my time at these various duty stations I continued to flight instruct, fly charter, and provide pilot service.

In 1980 I transferred out of the FSS option to the Flight Standards Division as an aviation safety inspector at Riverside, CA.  This change prompted many further trips to the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City for training.  Before my career as an FAA inspector ended on March 31, 2002, I was trained in a variety of single engine aircraft, numerous light twin engine aircraft, seaplanes, gliders, small turboprop aircraft, one larger turboprop aircraft the Merlin Metroliner and several jet aircraft.  My introduction to jets was conducted in the Saberliner.  I was then typed in the Gates Lear Jet.  Later I was typed rated in the DC-9 with a transition course to the MD-80.

A few years before I retired from the Flight Standards Division I took the job as the Safety Program Manager.  I spent my work days planning, organizing, and conducting a variety of aviation safety seminars for pilots.  This was a really positive way to end my career.  I enjoyed public speaking and using my aviation experience in a way that was educational and beneficial to the general aviation public.  I felt I had a real knack for public speaking and it appeared my seminars were very well attended and liked.  I especially liked working with flight instructors.

Since I retired from the FAA, I often run into people in the aviation community who ask me if I am still flying.  The answer is no.  The bottom line is I never really flew for pleasure.  It was always a way to make money and was a part of my job.  At this point I am pursuing other things of interest to me that for many years I put off because I was so busy with aviation.  I cannot rule out that I will not some day return to doing some flying, either as a flight instructor, or providing pilot service, but it seems a rather remote possibility at this point in my life.

When employed at the Flight Standards District Office in Riverside, I developed a rather extensive aviation web site that was used as the office's home page.  Now it has evolved down to this page.  I use to provide some interesting aviation links that can be very helpful as well as educational.  But, as time passed they became more and more out of date.  So I have taken them off.