I’m the operations manager for a tower company, a company that builds broadcasts and communications towers, but I got my start climbing up and down them.

How would you describe what you do?

We do everything that’s involved with building and maintaining a tower.

What does your work entail as a tower climber?

We build the towers, we take them down, we put the lights on them, we change the lights, we paint them, we scrape them, we run the antennas and lines.

When you go up a tower and you’re climbing 400 feet, you’re not coming down to get a cup of coffee, you’re not coming down to warm your hands, you’re not coming down for a lunch break. When you go up the tower you’re going to be there all day, it’s kind of like being like a mountain climber.

One of the more interesting things for most tower climbers is when they do a really high re-lamp, because most of them they’re are at night, and the broadcast towers could be 1,000 or 1,500-foot tall. They take the station off the air at one or two a.m. and you’re climbing in the wee hours of the morning changing the bulbs. That would be one of the more interesting things, the view is really good. Other than that it’s a lot of hanging lines and putting nuts and bolts through holes and running cable. A lot of tower crews are on the road all the time, where they just go from one job to the other, always on a per diem and having to get lodging, never really putting down roots. We’re fortunate in our company here that we do most of our work centrally located, but there’s still a lot of time on the road, a lot of times it’s hotels and work, hotels and work.

How did you get started?

I got started because I had relatives who owned a company. I had been in restaurant management for twenty years and I’d had enough of that. I thought it would be really exciting to get out and do something where you’d be physically challenged all the time and your decisions have more of an impact than whether the salad dressing’s correct. It takes a certain kind of person to really enjoy this though. You have to want to do it. If you’re just looking for a job, this isn’t for you.

What do you like about being a tower climber?

I like almost everything except for the winter time. You maintain a pretty high level of physical fitness, though you don’t end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. You’re not cut and all that, but you’re dragging yourself up and down towers every day, so you do have a certain level of physical fitness. Secondly, you’re outside all the time. So if you like being outside that’s a big plus. Also, it’s usually small crews and you’re kind of out in the boondocks, so you have to be a problem-solver, and every situation is a little bit different, things never fit the way the blue prints show, so sometimes were called to do some reengineering to make things work. When I was climbing with we had a great bunch of guys that traveled together, and it was a team effort. Everybody pulled on the same rope.

One of the more interesting things for most tower climbers is when they do a really high re-lamp, because most of them are at night, and the broadcast towers could be 1,000 or 1,500-foot tall. They take the station off the air at one or two a.m. and you’re climbing in the wee hours of the morning changing the bulbs…the view is really good.

If you weren’t getting after it, someone else was. There was a credo where you wouldn’t leave a guy on the tower. If you did your portion of the work and were done with it, you wouldn’t scamper down and let the other guy finish it. Everybody came off together, everybody went up together. That was a lot of fun then. People related what we did to the last cowboys, because we were always traveling and always out and about. So it can be a lot of fun.

What do you dislike?

I would dread the cold weather. Being up on a tower in the cold and knowing the night before that it was going to be 20 degrees the next day, and there’s still no way you’re out of it, the only way through it was to finish it, and you know you’re going to be up there for eight or nine hours. The cold is the thing that I like the least. I think almost every tower guy will tell you that. If you go up a tower and you’re climbing 400 feet, you’re not coming down to get a cup of coffee, you’re not coming down to warm your hands, you’re not coming down for a lunch break. When you go up the tower you’re going to be there all day, it’s kind of like being like a mountain climber.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

We’re hourly employees and depending on what level of climber you are; whether you’re a beginner or an elite climber, or if you’re taking crews, your pay varies.

How much money do you make?

Depending upon how much you work and what company you’re with the pay can range from $32,000 to $50,000 per year. They don’t make as much as you’d think. When I first started I thought, “I know these guys are making $50 an hour,” but it’s not true.

What education or skills are needed to be a tower climber?

It goes without saying that when you’re going up a tower and you’re at any height at all you’re going to need great balance. You have to be focused to be successful as a tower climber. If you’re scatterbrained or if you don’t plan well, and you’re not paying attention, you could have accidents.

It’s really not a dangerous job if you follow the rules and pay attention. There’s a lot of fatalities in the industry and it’s due to the fact that people don’t follow the rules or they’re not careful. I’d rather be on a tower than climbing a tree or on a roof. It really doesn’t have to be dangerous if you pay attention…

have to be focused because not only are you responsible for yourself, but you’re responsible for everybody that’s on the tower with you. If you drop things from any height, it could be very dangerous. As far as the skills that you need to develop, it could be as basic as sticking a big bolt through a big hole. Or it can be as complicated as learning some kind of test equipment and working with radio frequencies. There’s a wide gamut, so there’s room for everybody. At the beginning stages, if you can climb up a tower and be safe and follow instructions and follow the safety procedures, and put a bolt in a hole when someone tells you to, you can start. Then from there, as you gather more skills, you can take it to a higher level. Other than that, I think just stick-to-itiveness. You are going to get in that situation where it’s 2:00 in the morning and the dispatcher’s calling saying “It’s not working,” and it’s 20 degrees, and you just feel like crying and going home, so we look for guys that can just stick it out. The applicants that we look for must have a background in outside construction only because it takes a certain ruggedness to be outside and to manhandle that stuff. Anyone that really decides to, though, could give it a go.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Just the cold. Usually the physical aspect of climbing if you’re doing it every day isn’t a big deal. At the very beginning though, you’re using a whole different set of muscles, and so the first few weeks are challenging just because you’re tying to keep up with the guys that have been doing it for a while. But that’s probably not the most challenging. The most challenging for me is always the cold.

What is most rewarding?

It’s going to sound weird but when you’re working with a small crew you develop a good sense of camaraderie. And also, when you’re out there at the beginning of the week and the truck comes with a bunch of steel that gets off-loaded and by the end of the week, there’s a 400-foot tower standing there, there’s a sense of accomplishment. I think that and being outside is most enjoyable. And you feel kind of free because you’re not super supervised. There’s nobody there but your crew, generally. As long as you’re taking care of business and things are going well no one messes with you.

How much time off do you get/take?

In the winter the days get a lot shorter and you can’t be out as much and weather can affect you if you have iced up conditions or thunder storms. Usually, when the weather’s nice, you’re going at it from light to dark, so if you get a chance to get a rain-out day, you take advantage of it. So as far as time off you’re going at it all year as long as the weather’s working with you.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

I think there’s two… one is that we make a ton of money. Because a lot of time you hear truck drivers on the radios as they’re going by saying, “Look, those guys got to either be making $50 an hour or on crack,” and neither one of those are true. And second one is that it’s so dangerous. It’s really not a dangerous job if you follow the rules and pay attention. There’s a lot of fatalities in the industry and it’s due to the fact that people don’t follow the rules or they’re not careful. I’d rather be on a tower than climbing a tree or on a roof. It really doesn’t have to be dangerous if you pay attention, and if your company follows the rules.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

Probably one thing that I’m always amazed by is that when you’re selling a job or you’re talking to a customer and they call you at 3 in the morning for an emergency and they’re kind of shocked that it’s expensive. I’m surprised that people don’t expect that it’s going to be expensive to get a tower crew to come out and do some emergency dispatch on Christmas Eve. People pay $50 just to have the plumber stop by, why wouldn’t they expect it to be expensive to have a crew come out and climb a tower in the middle of the night?

What do you do for a living?

I practice general architecture.

How would you describe what you do?

Architects are responsible for anything to do with designing a building or structure.

What does your work entail as an architect?

What I do normally do is I start the design and the project from the very beginning to where I hand it off to one of the other architects in the office where they actually do the working drawings and specifications. I do a lot of preliminary design where I’ll meet with the client, determine what their program is, analyze the site, determine what can be built on site, how big of a building it is, and the preliminary budget.

The greatest thing that I like about it is simply walking into a building after you’ve designed it…and realize that this was a figment of your imagination…Then when you’re done, you’ve got a building standing there. The old saying is, “Doctors bury their mistakes, architects get to drive by them every day.”

I then I do some preliminary building arrangements, or floor plans and elevations and sections so that you can actually see what the building will look like, how big it will be and how it’s arranged and how well it suits their program. It’s mostly done in the office, but of course we’ll meet with clients and go out to sites and I’ll also sit in front of the computer a lot and draw. But, as you get higher up in the hierarchy of an office, you do more client contact and marketing for things outside the office, where a young architect will probably sit there most of the day and draw.

How did you get started?

I actually got started in high school. My parents built a house and I got interested in construction and then I took architectural drawing in high school. And then, right after high school, I started working for an architect. I worked for an architect for six summers before I actually graduated from college. Then when I graduated I started practicing full time.

What do you like about what you do?

The greatest thing that I like about it is simply walking into a building after you’ve designed it. Turn the key over to the owner and realize that this was a figment of your imagination, it was just putting lines on paper when you started. Then when you’re done, you’ve got a building standing there. The old saying is, “Doctors bury their mistakes, architects get to drive by them every day.”

What do you dislike?

If you’re owning a firm, every two weeks, you’ve got to come up with a lot of money to pay your people and there’s a lot of peaks and valleys.

It’s a challenge to solve problems and to create something where there was nothing. I have been licensed 34 years yet every project is a new, exciting project, because you’re problem solving, and creating something from nothing, that’s the exciting part.

Sometimes you’re covered up in work and there’s sometimes when you’re scrounging for work. Just getting work, that’s the hard part. Once you get the work, it’s all fun from there on.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

Well, the owners are paying you to design their buildings and they can pay you a number of ways. They can do either a fixed fee, they can pay you hourly, or they can pay you a percentage of the construction costs. But, you get paid at the end of each phase of the work, you would bill them for whatever the percentage of the work that you’ve done to that point. If the project doesn’t ever turn into a building, then you estimate how much of the fee you would have gotten.

How much money do you make?

My salary right now is $150,000. That’s not what your employees would be making. Starting salary right now is probably $32,000 to $33,000. Then, licensed architects, usually licensed architects are making around $50,000. It varies between all of their capabilities .

Would you say there are any perks to this career?

I would say that being an architect or an accountant, or a doctor, or a lawyer, it’s just the respect you get when people think an architect. Most of the time, you’re treated like professionals.

What education or skills are needed to be an architect?

To practice as a licensed architect, you have to have 5 years of college to get a professional degree. After that, you’ve got 3 years of the IDP, which is the Intern Development Program, you’ve got to work under a licensed architect for 700 units and each unit is equivalent to one day. There’s 14 different categories of work that you have to get before you can take your exam. Once you complete IDP, then you can take the licensing exam.

What is most challenging about what you do?

I’d say that our challenge is to get good work. I mean there’s a lot of work, but a lot of it is not real rewarding as far as being good architecture. I think it’s real challenging to find good clients who want to do good architecture, that want to spend the money to do good architecture, that’s a challenge. Everybody architect wants to do good architecture and but you have to take less challenging work along the way so that you’re in business when the good projects come along.

What is most rewarding?

I think it’s just the creative process. It’s a challenge to solve problems and to create something where there was nothing. I have been licensed 34 years yet every project is a new, exciting project, because you’re problem solving, and creating something from nothing, that’s the exciting part.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Be willing to work hard, it takes a long time to get to the point where you can own your own firm. Never be satisfied with any solution. You have to be inquisitive, you have to be tenacious, you have to be pugnacious. You have to be willing to go through 5 years of an intense architecture school. It’s a hard profession, but it’s a rewarding profession.

How much time off do you get/take?

I only take off about three weeks. Now, anytime I need to go somewhere I can. I’m my own boss so I can take off anytime I want to. But, I don’t. I’ve got 10 weeks of vacation that I haven’t used in 5 years or so. The employees get off 2 weeks a year. Once they’ve been here 10 years, they can take off 3.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

Mostly the misconception I get is that architects are rich. They’re not, they work hard. We don’t live in ivory towers. We’re concerned about making money for our clients. It’s a business and it’s an art. We have to be good businessmen or businesswomen, because if you’re not, you’re not going to be in business. It’s also a very scientific process, adapting changing technologies to the building, to make them better. Then, the art of it, we have to be artistic, because of the product that we produce. I guess people maybe don’t understand that: the science, the art and the business.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Of course, I’m at the end of my profession, so I guess I’m looking more towards retirement than I am anything else. But, if I was not looking for retirement, I think my goals would be to continue to do good architecture, have a positive impact on the built environment, keep some people employed, and make this a good place to work.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

I’d say that it is a very rewarding profession, if you’re willing to put out the effort, if you’re willing to stick with it. Just the joy of being able to see your work, it’s a real joy to walk by a good building or to drive by a good building and know that you did that.

Construction and Real Estate development.

How would you describe what you do?

I oversee and manage construction and real estate developments for a commercial construction company.

What does your work entail?

We do is anything from land development to the finished product, commercial products, and multi-family products. I’m basically in charge of the initial start of project, all the from when we turn dirt to the finished product.

How did you get started?

My family’s in it and I kind of just fell into it when I didn’t like anything else I did.

What do you like about what you do?

The freedom mainly. It’s basically like being self employed, that’s probably the biggest thing. I kind of set my own hours, leave when I want to, come when I want to. Also I have a lot interaction with people on a daily basis. It’s not the same everyday. I don’t have to worry about going to a desk and sitting there all day long. I can get out and go do things or I can sit at the office and can do the work that I need to there.

What do you dislike?

Some days it can be long and tiresome and you have to deal with subcontractors. Some days are difficult to deal with. Some times it can be rewarding though too. It’s mainly just so many ups and downs in the real estate and construction markets is probably the biggest thing I don’t like.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated?

Currently I am paid at just a base salary plus a bonus schedule based on how jobs are completed and the time frame in which they’re done.

How much money do you make?

It’s $250,000 plus. The base salary is six figures plus and then bonuses are based on the projects.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

Basic construction management and management of people. You also need negotiation skills. There’s not actually any degree requirements, granted a construction management degree would help somebody get started. Mainly just having somebody who’d be willing to learn and get into it and figure it out on their own.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Managing and controlling people.

What is most rewarding?

Besides the monetary figure it’s just the benefit of time and having some freedom. I if I want to have a family or if I was married I could easily do that.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

To work under somebody else first and get experience from somebody who has been doing it a while before jumping into it on your own.

How much time off do you get/take?

Guaranteed two weeks but basically whenever I want.

What is a common misconception people have about what you do?

Probably that people think I don’t do anything, just because it’s a lot of running around and checking on projects. There’s a lot of driving time, there’s a lot of things that have to be done before and after to make sure the project runs smoothly. Most people don’t ever see all that, because most of it’s done either in person or on the phone or in meetings.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

I want to get into bigger projects, leaning more toward bigger commercial projects. Not like hospitals but maybe institutional development or something.

What else would you like people to know about what you do?

It can be a very rewarding job. It can be very rewarding for people who like to be outdoors and also indoors at the same time. For the most part it’s not a real high stress job, although it can be stressful at times.