I’m a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department of the United States, and I’m currently the American ambassador to five countries in the Pacific Ocean: Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu, and Tonga.

How would you describe what you do?

I’m the U.S. President’s primary representative for all American interests in the part of the world where I’m the ambassador.  That varies from being responsible for taking care of the American citizens and their needs to the issuance of visas, to the discussions about political and economic and trade and commerce issues. We’re also working on the military relationships, dealing with the environment. It’s just the whole range of things.

What does your work entail as an ambassador?

One of the things I like about my job is that every week is going to be different.  I have about 80 or 90 people, local employees and Americans who work for me at the embassy, and each week we have internal meetings to discuss their roles and duties.  I usually have a number of meetings of people from outside the embassy as well, either local folks who have an interest in something economic, political, commercial, or maybe other diplomats or international organization types.  I also do public diplomacy, the last two days I’ve given speeches at different sorts of events trying to make sure that people are well aware that the United States is here, and what our policies are and why we have them.

How did you get started?

I had been doing a variety of things for a number of years into my mid 30s when I realized that I still wanted to be involved in public service, but I didn’t want to continue on with the, kind of, political jobs that I’ve been having, and so I turned to the State Department and it offered a variety of things that I’ve always been interested in such as International Relations.

There are really two ways to get into this.   The way I did it is through the State Department process where you join as a junior officer and you work your way up through the system and about 2/3 of the ambassadors go through that route. For that, you begin by taking a written test that is offered several times a year at a variety of places in the United States and also at embassies all over the world. And then if you pass that test, which is a pretty tough test, then you go on to a day-long assessment that the State Department offers. And if you pass that, you go through medical and security checks. If you pass that, you’ll be put on a list and maybe get employed. It takes about a year to go through the process and there’s no surety to it because there’s a lot of people who start and very few people who get selected in the end. So it’s rigorous. And then you work your way up through the system.

The other way for becoming ambassador is that the White House always chooses a number of ambassadors from its own lists without the State Department connection, and that’s based upon people who have assisted the effort to get the President elected one way or another, or people who are well-known to people in the White House and they figure that they would do a really good job even though they haven’t gone through the State Department system. About a third of the ambassadors are from that side of it as well, so I guess you either go through the bureaucratic process, or you have the good fortune to know somebody who gets elected President.

What do you like about what you do?

I think in part it’s that I do get to move from place to place, learn new skills, gain a new depth of knowledge, test myself in new ways; that keeps me stimulated. And so I enjoy that. There’s a lot of interaction with a variety of peoples around the world. I think that’s good. I think the United States tries to do good works in the world and I’m happy to be part of that.

What do you dislike?

Well, the hardest parts are that you are off somewhere else in the world much of the time. I’ve been with the State Department for 24 and ½ years now, I guess, and probably 17 of those years have been overseas.

And I do have a family. Fortunately, my wife and I really joined as a team, so it’s never been a worry between the two of us. We both like the lifestyle and we both have been satisfied with it. But it’s difficult on kids. When I was growing up, I was from a very small town on Iowa. My grandparents lived next door; my friends from infancy were my friends when I graduated from high school; very stable relationships. My daughter went to four different high schools, and all my kids are going to a series of schools, so they’ve become very strong socially through that.  I think they can deal with practically anything. They’re far more adept at that than I was when I was the same age, but some of the deep-seeded roots are harder to maintain. And also, as parents age, we were a long ways away a lot of the time, and that was very difficult.

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

It’s a salary basis, and the salary depends upon what rank you are in the system. It’s a little like the military in a way. It depends on your rank and kind of time and service and how far you’ve proceeded through the system. And then there’s additional compensation. If you are in a very tough place, and even more if you are in a very dangerous place, and more, again, in a very expensive place.

How much money do you make as a US Ambassador?

Well, I won’t say for myself, but I’m now in kind of the senior ranks of the State Department, and I think that it’s publicly listed that the senior salary is ranged from somewhere from $130,000 up to maybe $160,000.

And that’s a lot less than what we would be earning in the private sector, by the way.

Would you say there are any perks to being a US Ambassador?

In addition to the salary, if you are overseas, the State Department provides you housing. And then there’s also a government-subsidized health insurance plan, and you can get government life insurance as well. There is vacation time at about five weeks of vacation a year. If you’re overseas, and if you’re in a tough, difficult place, the State government will pay to fly you to what is called rest and recreation leave occasionally, about once a year. All of those things make life not so bad.

What education or skills are needed to be a US Ambassador?

I don’t think there’s any particular education required for the State Department, but the reality is it’s a highly competitive field, and almost everybody who comes in has at least a college/university degree. Most people have work experience and graduate degrees. It’s great if a person happens to have foreign languages, particularly the tough kind of languages like Arabic or Chinese, Korean, or Japanese. As far as particular educational background, I’m not sure that any particular one is most prominent. A lot of people come in with a political science, economic or history background.   The State Department hires people to do all sorts of things, including management work, councilor, helping American citizens in doing visas, doing public diplomacy, doing political work, doing economic work, so a wide variety of skills and a wide variety of backgrounds.

What is most challenging about what you do?

I guess it’s when things aren’t going so great in your relationship with a country. For instance, right now in Fiji, as you may have noticed when you were visiting, there’s a serious governance problem; so they had a coup about a year ago. The United States has always been unhappy to see coups, and it’s been difficult to work with the post-coup interim government of Fiji, and I think most everyone likes to be at jobs where it’s always a cooperative effort to achieve common goals. It’s much more difficult when you’re dealing with people who don’t share your goals.

Also, the average term for a career State Department person is probably about three years, but we don’t actually have a fixed term. We are at the pleasure of the President, and if the President decided tomorrow that he had enough of me for Fiji and wanted somebody else here, that could happen. And when there’s a Presidential election as will happen next November, a year from now, all of the ambassadors in the world submit their resignations to be accepted if the new President wishes to take them. Usually, the career types are kept on to the end of the three-year tour, but not always, and often the political appointees are turned over because the new President wants to bring in the new people.

What is most rewarding?

Well, one, I’m proud to be an American, and it’s nice to be chosen as the United States senior representative to a foreign country.  It’s a huge honor. But it’s only great if you’re out there trying to do the things that make America proud. And I really like the thought of attempting to encourage democracy and encourage open governance and encourage respect for human rights and encourage the people locally who aspire for those things to keep working for those sorts of thing.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Well, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the State Department is not for everyone, but if you are inclined to interact with the rest of the world, and if you thrive on moving to new places and doing new things repeatedly, and if you’re okay with government salaries which, given the skill levels, are less than what you could make in the private sector then this could be for you.

How much time off do you get/take?

And a lot of people go overseas for a tour, back to Washington for a tour or two, overseas a tour, back to Washington. It does depend on what kind of work you do; if you’re doing the consular work or the management work there are going to be more opportunities overseas than Washington. In my case, I really love being overseas, so I’ve aimed to be overseas more often, and I probably spend two-thirds of my career overseas.

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

Well, particularly here in Fiji, I think the misconception is that I’m sitting on a lovely beach, under a palm tree drinking a pina colada  just partying all the time on diplomatic circuit.  We do real work just like in the States.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Well, I’m probably moving on toward the latter stages of my career. I think I would probably have one more assignment, and then there is a mandatory retirement age at 65. You can retire after you’ve had 20 years in and have reached at least the age of 50.  I’ve always thought that I will keep taking jobs as long as I keep getting offered interesting jobs, and to my great pleasure, I’ve continually been offered interesting jobs. So I look forward to moving on to another interesting job after this and then we’ll see what happens. But when I finally get to retirement I think I’ll deserve it.

Is there anything else you would like people to know about your job

I think working for the State Department, not just as an ambassador, can be a very rewarding career. You’re in interesting places, and not always glamorous places, but always in places that have fascinating people and lots to offer.  It’s been a very rewarding career.

I’m in equity research for an investment firm, I’m an associate analyst there.

How would you describe what you do?

Currently, as an associate analyst, I help the more senior analysts do research on different stocks that we follow and help try and determine whether they’re stocks that our clients should buy or sell.

What does your work entail?

There are several different things.

Probably the most rewarding is knowing that if you’re doing a good job, you’re helping people build their financial wealth. Most of our clients are people either building towards retirement or are in retirement, and by helping them invest properly then you’re directly helping them live better.

A lot of my job is helping the senior analyst’s keep that up to date and making sure we’re keeping up on the trends and news about what’s happening with the companies we follow. And there’s all kinds of small projects associated with that. The other part of it is trying to develop my own knowledge so that I can follow my own companies here at some point.

How did you get started?

I started as a financial advisor, so I was doing the actual sales side of it and decided I didn’t want to be doing the sales, I’d rather be analyzing the company, so I moved into our home office and started in the research department.

What do you like about what you do?

I just find what I’m doing interesting. I find it interesting and challenging at the same time because you’re trying to make the right decision on whether a stock’s going to go up or whether it’s going to go down. When you’re right it’s rewarding, so that’s probably why I enjoy it.

What do you dislike?

Oh, at times, it can be a little boring in that you’re doing all this reading; you’re doing a lot on Excel, those types of things. So, maybe a lack of interaction with other people sometimes can be a negative part of the job but it’s not as bad as what some people might think it is. You have plenty of interaction with the other analysts and things like that but I would say that would probably be one downside.

How do you make money/or how are you compensated as a stock analyst?

Currently, the way I’m compensated is mainly through salary and then there are bonuses every trimester that are based partly on my performance and partly on the company’s performance.

How much money do you make as a stock analyst?

About $60,000

Would you say there are any perks to this job?

There’s your normal type benefits; 401k, health benefits, and all those types of things. Then also one of the biggest benefits working for Edward Jones is you have the opportunity of becoming a limited partner in the firm. I became a limited partner last year so now I get to share in the profits.

What education or skills are need to be a stock analyst?

A degree in finance or accounting would be ideal. Typically you’ll need high grade point averages too. Then you’re required at my firm, not at all firms but at my firm, to get your CFA which stands for Chartered Financial Analyst before you can start to cover your own company. You don’t have to have it before starting but you have to have it before you start following your own companies. It’s a series of three tests. Typically, you have to pass at least one or two of them before you have much of a chance of getting hired.

So the biggest thing is, an accounting or a finance background and ability to pass the CFA exam. I’d say, you’ve got to have some analytical skills, you’ve got to be good with numbers. You’re dealing with numbers all day long but then at the same time, you’ve got to be able to communicate your message to our financial advisors, so you’ve also got to have some communication skills.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Just trying to figure out what information is most important. There’s news out there every single day on stocks and you have to figure out whether the news items are something that’s really going to matter over the long-term or not. Then you have to take all the information and make the call you think is right. Nobody’s right every time but it’s nice to be able to be right most of the time.

What is most rewarding?

Probably the most rewarding is knowing that if you’re doing a good job, you’re helping people build their financial wealth. Most of our clients are people either building towards retirement or are in retirement, and by helping them invest properly then you’re directly helping them live better.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

First of all, if they’re a young person coming out of college, they would need to do as well as they could, you know, as far as their GPA, but especially in their business courses. For someone not coming out of college I would say to have as much experience and background in finance or accounting would be the best. And then to really stand a good chance of getting, into our firm anyway, to have one or two levels of the CFA exam finished is a big advantage as well.

How much time off do you get/take?

As far as vacation days, I get eleven vacation days; if you have been at the firm for less than five years. If you’ve been there over five years, then it starts to go up to fifteen, and then twenty, but I get eleven vacation days. I can’t remember how many sick days I get it’s more than I would ever use. And then the hours are very flexible, so if I need to take a half day here or there, come in at 9:00 or leave at 4:00, whatever, I can do that. But as far as policy goes, I get eleven vacation days.

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

I think probably the biggest misconception would be most people, when they think of an analyst, they think of some nerdy guy sitting there in a cubicle by himself all day looking at numbers and not interacting with anyone, or anything like that, and I think that’s probably the biggest misconception. Even though you are sitting at your desk and doing a lot of research, you’re also involved in a lot of meetings with the other people on your team and trying to find out what other people are seeing out in the economy, and those types of things. And you’re also interacting with financial advisors, brokers, and things like that. So I’d say that would be the biggest misconception.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

It would be to get to a more senior analyst position, which would mean I’m following my own stocks and making my own recommendations, and then to go beyond that would be more like a, you know, department leader or something like that: the head of research or something like that. But in the fairly near future, it would be more of a senior analyst type of role.

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

I think we’ve hit on most of it. I just think for someone that enjoys numbers, analyzing things, enjoys the stock market, those types of things, I think it’s a very rewarding career, and there’s a lot of ways that you can go with it. I mean, there’s firms like mine that focus on individual investors and those types of things; there’s mutual fund companies out there, pension funds, so you can kind of pick where you want to go depending on how hard you want to work.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a PGA Golf professional.

How would you describe what you do?

I own and operate a golf shop…golf retail operation. I manage the day-to-day operation of a country club.

What does your work entail as a PGA Golf Pro?

You name it. Everything from conducting tournaments, to teaching, merchandising, public relations, marketing…I mean, we can go on and on.

How did you get started?

I got started because as a kid I was a golfer, and was a pretty good junior player, and just decided at a young age that I was going to be a golf professional – either I was going to play on tour or I was going to be a club professional – and tour didn’t work out so I’m a club professional.

What do you like about what you do?

Well, for one, I’m at the golf course every day; whether I get to play or not, I’m still at the golf course every day. And the ability to interact with people on a daily basis – different people – and be able to share my expertise in something they love. Plus I’m not sitting behind a desk. I’m dealing with people on a social level for a living.

What do you dislike?

I have to deal with people on a social level for a living. The demands as far as time. I work every weekend, I work every holiday. When you’re dealing with the public, you have one policy and it’s there for a reason, and some people aren’t going to agree with it. And it’s the same as everything else, but probably demand on time is the greatest thing I don’t like about it.

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

Well, I have a salary from the country club, and then I own the golf shop retail side of it, and then teaching, and club repair.

How much money do you make as a PGA golf pro?

Somewhere about eighty-five to ninety thousand a year. It’s probably right about average for golf pro’s.

Would you say there are any perks to this career?

Tons. We have endorsement contracts just like the touring professionals do. We don’t get paid as much – not near as much – but, we get all the free equipment, and balls, and everything we want. PGA members pretty much play free golf wherever they go, at any club or golf course. And then in the community it’s nice, because you kind of always have people wanting to do you favors. It’s just one of those things.

What education or skills are needed to do be PGA golf pro?

Well, I have a college degree. You need to be a PGA member. You don’t have to be, but the education process through the apprenticeship in the PGA education is a must. And then I’ve got continuing education. I’m a master professional. So the PGA education is definitely required. College education, not necessarily, but most coming into the industry now have a college degree. You have to pass what they call the player’s ability test, you take the course rating for the golf course that’s hosting it, and you multiply it times two, and add fifteen, and that’s what you have to shoot.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Probably just dealing with the variety of personalities, some people are always easygoing, some people are never easygoing. Being able to switch modes and know, “Okay, I have to stroke this guy this way, and I got to stroke this guy this way.” And being able to treat people equally but have different methods to making them, you know, understand, I guess.

What is most rewarding?

The most rewarding thing about being a golf professional is seeing people satisfied at the golf course. I work at a place where people go for leisure. So when somebody has a great day at the golf course, when they’ve played great, or they just had the perfect day, whatever, that’s the most satisfying is…I know they had a good experience at the golf course, and hopefully, it was, in some way, in part to my management skills.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

If you want to play golf, don’t become a golf professional. And we all say that. I only play about once every two weeks. If you just love the game, and you want to play, just play golf as much as you can, don’t become a golf professional. But if you love the game, and you want to be around it, involved in it, in every different facet of it, then you’d probably be a good candidate.

How much time off do you get/take?

Two weeks’ vacation, and then in season one day a week, off season is two days a week. And then a lot of times I’ll go two and three weeks at a time without getting a day off sometimes. January and February, we’re still operating. I’m taking two days off a week – I’m taking Sunday and Monday off – but there is a lot to do, because you’ve got your whole golf season ahead of you that you’re getting prepared for. You’re working schedules out; you’re working out contracts for outings, things like that. You’re ordering merchandise for your shop and that kind of thing. So, you’re not working as many hours. I mean, I’m down to thirty-five, forty hours a week in the wintertime, but you’re still staying busy. But, you know, hey, let’s be honest, wintertime – January and February – I mean, I work for about an hour and a half in the morning, and the rest of the day I’m sitting there, you know, shooting the shit.

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

The most common misconception is that golf professionals play golf every day, without a doubt. And another misconception is that we’re PGA Tour players. We’re not.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

You know, I’ve really met a lot of my goals. I’m actually in the process of setting some more. You know, for me, my most immediate goals are really related to the club here, and seeing that membership become full, and seeing that it becomes a smooth-running operation that cash flows, and is a premier club. Long-range for me, probably go work for either the PGA Tour, or the Nationwide Tour as a rules official, but that’s something I’ll do twenty years from now.

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

You know, the time commitment is great. The apprenticeship…just to get to the level where I am, just to be a head golf professional, the commitment is huge, and the money is terrible. There’s a three- to five-year gut check that you’re going to make very little money, and you’re going to work a lot of hours, but you’re going to gain a lot of knowledge, and the tough thing is there’s twenty-eight thousand golf professionals, there’s only nine thousand jobs. So a job comes open, there’s a lot of competition for it. So, you’d better do something to set yourself apart.

My title is Animal Services Superintendent.

How would you describe what you do?

Basically, I’m the director or manager of the animal shelter, and/or animal services, which also encompasses animal control. We have a vet clinic also.

What does your work entail?

I work for a municipal shelter animal shelter. I’m responsible for planning the budget; making sure that we’ve got the money, and where to spend it, and where to put it. I buy vet supplies for the veterinarian too and make sure the officers are going to complaints and calls that people have out there on the street. I have to make sure we have animals up on the floor that have been temperament tested and they’re behaviorally sound. I have to make sure the animals are properly cleaned, and properly fed, and if they’re sick they get treatment. I talk to people when they bring in animals.

…that’s the satisfying thing’s when you see the animals find a home, and you saw what they looked like when they came infested with fleas, infested with tics; and we’ve had to shave them down to their skin because of an irresponsible owner. And then you find it a great home, and that just makes it all worthwhile.

A lot of my duties are trying to educate people: publicity-type stuff, press releases, and educational materials and literature and trying to make people aware of what is responsible pet ownership and how can you make pet overpopulation go away. Spay-neuter; we preach spay and neuter, spay and neuter. We try to come up with programs that will help people. When people bring in a stray there is no charge. When they bring in their own animal to surrender, for whatever reason, there’s no charge. That’s kind of a myth that we charge folks. The adoption includes spay and neuter. We instituted micro-chipping about four or five years ago, so it’s helped us to get animals back to their owners. It’s a permanent form of identification, even if pets lose their tags, and collars, and all that.

I belong to a group called S.A.W.A., which is Society of Animal Welfare Administrators. We all try to work together and figure out what we can do to make pet ownership easier for people, but then, also look at, what people are doing wrong, and what crimes are being committed against animals. So, that’s part of my job, too, is to look at animal cruelty and people that are breaking ordinances.

So, a lot of my job is just really meeting with people, talking to the public, talking to aldermen. We work under the police department so I do answer to the Chief of Police.

A lot of the fun parts is really getting out and talking to the public. Like on Saturday, we were at the farmer’s market and did a rabies and micro-chipping clinic right there on the square. Our full-time vet that we have on staff did rabies shots. So getting out and really talking with the public and trying to help people that have concerns and have problems, is really helpful.

We once had a guy come in and say, you know, we’ve got a doghouse so I need a dog. Well, that’s not a reason to adopt. And so, a lot of times, those are the things that make it tough, because people get angry when we don’t approve you for adoption. And that’s unfortunate that people don’t understand, that we’re not adopting out guard dogs, we’re not adopting out dogs to live in your backyard, or to run down your grass or your weeds. We’re adopting out animals to be your companions; to be part of your family.

You see folks out there that have, little money, pets bring enrichment to their lives. Everybody should be able to have a pet, and we want that. And that’s why we provide some low-cost, low-income type things like our spay-neuter program for just $10. And, we do, every month, have a rabies and booster clinic where it’s $7. Come and get your rabies shots, your booster shots for the year; for both dogs and cats. And so those are things that we try to do to be kind of an outreach source for the public. Of course, we also do education. We go to the schools, we go to different organizations to talk about dog bites, and spay and neutering, you know, I’m going to say spay and neuter as many times as I can. And, you know, all of those things.

And pet overpopulation. Why are we even here? You know, what’s the point? And that’s a quandary that we have. We call ourselves an open admission shelter. Some folks call us a kill shelter. There’s just a huge myth and kind of in society of what is a kill and what is a no-kill shelter, and there’s really not a no-kill shelter. Folks like to think they are sometimes, but a lot of times what happens is if an animal get’s sick, they take it to a vet’s clinic and euthanize it. And we basically do the same thing here. We, unfortunately at times, do have to euthanize adoptable animals. Our adoption rate or reclaim rate is about fifty-two, fifty-three percent. So, out of five thousand animals a year, about two thousand of them are euthanized; twenty four hundred are euthanized. And that’s tragic, and it’s part of the job that is probably different than most peoples’ jobs.

You know, I have to play God a lot, and it’s unfortunate. It’s not something that I prefer to do, but it’s something where it gives you a perspective on life. I think it changes you and, you know, most of the staff that work here will tell you, when you participate in euthanasia and it’s not, one dog here, one dog there. Some days it’s ten dogs. Some days it’s twenty cats. When they just come constant, and there’s no room for them.

We, unfortunately at times, do have to euthanize adoptable animals. Our adoption rate or reclaim rate is about fifty-two, fifty-three percent. So, out of five thousand animals a year, about twenty four hundred are euthanized. And that’s tragic, and it’s part of the job that is probably different than most peoples’ jobs…I have to play God a lot, and it’s unfortunate.

And we can’t say, nope, we’re full, you know, we’re going to have to turn you away. We don’t have that option. We have to take in all of the animals and therefore we’re open admission. Whereas somebody else who calls themselves a no-kill, you know, they can turn people away.  No, we’re full, sorry, you’re going to have to dump it on the side of the road down the street.  Whereas that’s what we don’t want you to do, we don’t you want you to dump it somewhere. So, unfortunately, that means, at times, we have to euthanize.

We try really hard to get them to rescue. We have animals on Pet Finder, so that people, you know, across the country can find dogs and cats. We’ve had dogs go to the homes on the East Coast, the West Coast, south. We’ve had them go north to Canada. We find people who can transport; there’s actually people, and this is something you might be interested in doing is a volunteer who transports. There’s people that actually transport animals and that’s their job across the country. And they do like a two-week type of thing, where they run dogs and cats across the country. I mean, we’re going to great lengths to find great homes, so we don’t have to euthanize.

And we work really hard. We’ve got a volunteer who just flew nine Pit Bull puppies up to Massachusetts in the spring, and he just did another flight. He’s a pilot. There’s a Pit Bull rescue out of Massachusetts so, he takes our Pit Bulls in his private plane so we can get them there. And they have the ability to put them in foster homes and then find them a really good home. You know, breed-specific rescues have that ability, whereas a shelter, we don’t have the time; we don’t have the manpower, we don’t have the time. And so it takes people like volunteers to help us out; to help us transport these animals across the country.

My dreams would be that everyone would spay and neuter! Spay and neuter and that we’ll close this shelter soon.

That makes you feel good, with what you do. And that’s the satisfying thing when you see the animals find a home, and you saw what they looked like when they came in, infested with fleas, infested with tics; we’ve had to shave them down to their skin because of an irresponsible owner. And then you find it a great home, and that just makes it all worthwhile.

Whereas, having to euthanize is a terrible thing, and folks have come to us and called us, every name you can think of, and then we say, well gee, we weren’t the ones that bred those dogs or cats, and my dogs are spayed and neutered. So, how is that my responsibility? And so, it’s very difficult; it’s very hard to do. But it’s a part of the job and anybody that gets into this has to know that it will be part of their job. And if they’re a superintendent, or a director, or a manager, they’re going to be the ones that are going to have to pick and choose and select. They may do it by committee, they may have certain people in the shelter setting that do it, but the ultimate end comes to the director’s desk, and they have to be the ones that decide are those the dogs that we have to euthanize, or the cats that we’re going to euthanize?  We do do behavioral testing so that makes it a little bit easier, because you can see that aggression and go, “there’s a liability here, there’s a safety issue, and so we can’t send this dog or this cat, you know, to the adoption floor.  So, at that point we have to euthanize.

How did you get started?

I actually was in college and it was late one night, and you’re like, Oh, God.  And you know, you’re just going through books all of a sudden because you’re so delirious. I’ve always loved animals; we’ve always had animals as a kid. And I kept reading about all this animal experimentation and bad things. And I just went, this is nuts. This is crazy.  And so, you kind of wonder, gee, what can I do to make a difference?  And so I volunteered at some shelters when I was in college, and I did a lot of projects. I was a journalism and a public relations major, and so I did some newsletters and educational material for the local shelters. And it was interesting to see the kind of behind-the-scene stuff while I was writing for the paper.

And I actually rode with an officer one night, and, she showed me euthanasia and how they used to do this was, you know, twenty years ago. And so, it was that vacuum chamber where you stick the animal in and it just basically sucks the air out of them so they can’t breathe. And that was horrid. That was gut-wrenching, yeah. Today, we don’t do it that way. Most states, anyway, don’t do it that way. Most states have it where, you know, it’s an injection of Sodium Pentobarbital, and so the animals just basically go to sleep and they their heart stops beating. And it’s quick; it’s very quick, and very painless. And so, that was appalling to me. That that’s how we were going to, kill basically, the unwanted animals.

And so, I did some more research into that and thought, god, there’s got to be a better way.  Unfortunately, there are some states that still do it that way. Kentucky still does it that way, some folks in Mississippi still. And they have big chambers now, and Tulsa actually still does it that way, although they’re getting away from their gas chamber so.  It’s just a horrifying death, it’s not humane, and people should be appalled by that, really appalled. You want it to be a humane euthanasia, otherwise that’s cruel. And, so anyway, that just really got me into it, and then I went my way.

People think since it’s(adopted pet) had its Front Line, it’s had its booster shots, it’s been spayed or neutered, it’s been micro-chipped, it’s been rabies vaccinated; it’s going to be perfectly healthy for the rest of its life. And then it goes home and it gets sick, and it’s got kennel cough, and you’re going to have to put it on antibiotics. And people are like, What did you give me?  You know, it’s like the perception is still, like, this is property, and this animal is a living, breathing creature, and it’s going to get sick just like your baby does. And that’s why we try to tell people when we do adoption counseling is this is a living creature and we cannot guarantee that it’s not going to get sick; and it’s just like a child. If you were adopting a baby, if it gets sick, are you going to take it back and say, Give me another one?  Are you going to take it to the doctor?

My husband went to work for the city and I saw this job opening and went, you know, I would love that job. That would be a great job. You know, petting the puppies all day long, and oh, that would be so much fun.  Yeah, you know, it wasn’t petting the puppies all day long. But, you know, it was just I just kind of saw it and went, man, that’s, you know, I can do that. I would be so good at that. Really. Give me the job. And, so, you know, luckily they did, and I’ve been fortunate and really pretty grateful ever since.

What do you like about what you do?

It’s the adoption. It’s being able to go out there and see animals rescued, seeing the officers go out there and they look at some horrible situations, you know animals living in filth, starving to death, you know, living on this huge long chain, and she’s got puppies but they give her no food and water, and it’s just devastating when you go out to see that, and you do have those emotions where you just really want to kill these folks. But you have to, you know, try to educate and move on to save the animals and we do have the power to issue citations of course, we do that”and save the animals. And that’s really about getting them out of those situations. And I think that’s really where it makes it all worthwhile; just knowing that you’re helping those animals, getting them out of those situations.

And we work with wildlife a lot, so that’s interesting, too, and it’s interesting to rehabilitate; see a deer, or a hawk, or an owl, you know, recover and let them go, or release them back into the wild so, that’s really cool, too. It’s really ou never know what the day’s going to bring. Never know.

What do you dislike?

It’s the euthanasia. It’s really that and dealing with some folks I guess it’s hard when you come across people who are so closed-minded, and you know you’re not going to get in there. You’re not going to have the opportunity, be it you don’t have the time or they don’t have the time, you’re just in the wrong place to really try to make them understand how this is wrong, how we shouldn’t do it anymore. And dealing with those folks, that just won’t be open-minded to there’s a better way. We don’t have to treat animals like this. We’re not going to adopt them out to you for you to put them on a chain and not feed or water them until you feel like it. We once had a guy come in and say, you know, I’ve got a doghouse so I need a dog.  Well, that’s not a reason to adopt. And so, a lot of times, those are the things that make it tough, and people get angry because there are times when we don’t approve you for adoption. And that’s unfortunate that people don’t understand, that we’re not adopting out guard dogs, we’re not adopting out dogs to live in your backyard, or to run down your grass or your weeds. We’re adopting out animals to be your companions; to be part of your family. And, so, people get angry at that, and it’s unfortunate, you know, and you know, that’s something that we have to look at.

And a lot of times we’ll get the remark, well, you’d just rather kill this dog,or, You’d just rather kill this cat.  I would. I would rather kill a cat than know that you’re going to take it home and let it loose, and not feed it and not water it unless you’re, you know, in the mind to do that, and you possibly might have that money, and then you’re not going to provide vet care if it gets sick, or gets injured; and it’s going to get hit by a car, because it’s not a feral cat, it’s not, you know, it doesn’t know about cars and it’s going to get ran over. Or you’re going to let people, you know, mistreat it, or whatever. So, you know, when folks do say that, you know, nowadays I say, Yeah, I would rather because you’re not going to provide it with the best home or a good home, or even a good life.  But a lot of times that doesn’t happen. A lot of times we find a good home, and I don’t have to kill it. So, you know, that’s the bad one, you know, just knowing that all of this all of the euthanasia could be solved if people would just spay and neuter.

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

I work for the city, so I am a city employee. Everybody who works here is a city employee, so we are very lucky. The city pays very well compared to the other surrounding cities. We have good benefits, very good retirement plan, good health insurance, dental insurance, eye insurance, vacations; you know, we get vacation time, we get sick time, we get holidays off, well some of us. People work here year round.

How much money do you make as an Animal Shelter Superintendent?

I started at $35,000 a year, that was six years ago and the city has gone through some changes, and I am now at $69,000 a year. There are some folks just in this area, they’re making $35,000 a year. Some less than that depending on, their shelter size and their staff load. And there are some people in non-profit in different areas that are making over $100,000. So, it really depends on where you are and how many folks and animals you’re responsible for.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

I would say a college degree helps. Some folks have a background in veterinary medicine, animal control, even human medicine, you name it. There’s a lot of different backgrounds, but somewhere along the way the become directors of shelters. And it’s just really you have to be able to deal with numbers; budgets, projections, knowing what you’re going to need, and how much you’re going to need, why you need it. You have to have some, knowledge of animal biology, and animal control, how to work with legislation, ordinances, being able to read some kind of law documents, those type of things.

You also need public relations skills.  I mean, you need to be able to communicate really well with people. You need to be able to write well. You need to be able to manage people well, like I said, if you don’t have a good staff, you’re out of luck.

If you have a passion for animals and you have a passion for animal welfare that’ll get you there. You know, it really will. And a lot of people come up in the ranks, our animal services coordinator, she started as a caregiver and then she was an animal control officer, and then she kind of just worked her way up into admin and, you know, working with the budget, and that type of stuff, and, you know, managing people. Those are just those are skills that you’re going to need.

What is most challenging about what you do?

I think, really, being able to juggle all of the things that occur in a day. And so it’s really hard to try to get all of my processing done of check requests, and bills paid we’re needing a new roof or we’re needing a new ceiling, or the incinerator is broke, or the air conditioner is not working, or the officer’s truck broke down. And so, you’re constantly trying to juggle those priorities. Somebody’s mad at the volunteer coordinator, so the volunteers are going to quit.

So it’s really just juggling everything at once and still finding time to make a difference.

What is most rewarding?

I think just really looking at animals that you’ve seen at their worst. You’ve seen them come in, they’re skin and bones, they have no hair, they’re infested with fleas and tics, and we provide everything that they need for, and they thrive. I mean, you know, it’s sad to say, the shelter is the best that they’ve ever seen it. Being in a shelter setting and they’re thriving, and they’re on the adoption floor, and you’re spending time with them. And just, when you look into that animal’s eyes and you know that they’re grateful, and where they’ve been. I often say,  You know, if they could only tell us. I think anybody who is as sensitive to animals, I think we’d be in an insane asylum because what they would be able to tell us of about their life would be so devastating, and heart-wrenching, that we wouldn’t be able to handle it. But just looking in their eyes and seeing, how grateful they are, and how this is, going to change their life.

And then they go home and we get updates. I love the people who update us. They’ll send us pictures, they’ll e-mail, Hi, I just want you to know, Suzy looks like this now.  Or they’ll come by. And we really make a point at those times to call the staff up and say,  Hey, you know, Bruno’s back. Come and see him.  And the owners are, this is the best dog I’ve ever had. This is the greatest do.  We’ve had a cat that saved somebody’s life that was adopted here, and we had one dog that he was this little mutt-y terrier mix that actually played the dog in Annie at a local theatre just recently. And so she sent us pictures. Those are the type of things that are just throws you over the moon and you’re just like, I’m good, I’m good for another six months. I can handle it.

That’s really it for us, and that’s what drives all of us, is just being able to see those successes and know that we’ve saved that animal and put him in a great home. And they’re loved and cared for and so that’s really what it amounts to, is just, that it’s all about self- satisfaction. I mean, we’re self we’re really selfish people here. It’s like, Give us more. That’s so cool, yeah. And that’s really it.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

A career in animal welfare, is an emotional roller coaster ride. You have to learn to be able to be calm and not take things personally. You cannot put your heart on your sleeve. You just can’t do it. You’ve got to have a thick skin and you have to be determined. You cannot give up. You just do it for your love of the animals. If you don’t have a love for animals and you think it’s just, oh, you know, I can make fifteen bucks an hour as an animal control officer. I’m going to go do that.  That is not the approach, because if you don’t care about animals, you’re not going to make it.

How much time off do you get/take?

Not a lot. Well, you know, you do get it, it’s just a matter of taking it. Right now, I think I’ve got over two hundred and fifty hours of vacation that I haven’t taken. I need to work on that, because it’s important to get away every once in a while.

The city gives us two weeks a year. After, I think, you’ve been here ten years, you get three weeks a year. And so that’s really nice. That’s a good thing. It’s just finding the time to take it and being able to do that.

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

It’s hard for people to get a good grip on, why should I adopt from a shelter? Why should I adopt from your shelter?  I mean, there’s a wide range of diversity. Every shelter is different.

Anyone can be called a humane society, anyone can be an animal shelter, and there’s relatively no oversight. So some peoples’ experience with an animal shelter is great, and others would never even think about adopting from one.

So combating people’s pre-conceived opinions is difficult sometimes.

If you looked at our shelter and then you went to the shelter down the street, it’s not the same. Our policies are not the same, our adoption prices are not the same; what we give you is not the same as what they give you. Spay and neuter is included with us; we have a vet on staff. There’s only two other shelters in this state that have a vet on staff. One’s in Little Rock and one’s in Sebastian County. So, you’re not going to get the same experience. And so, trying to, make people understand that, that’s the first problem. And the second problem is they expect that that dog or cat they get from you, that you’ve done everything to it. They think since it’s had its Front Line, it’s had its booster shots, it’s been spayed or neutered, it’s been micro-chipped, it’s been rabies vaccinated; it’s going to be perfectly healthy for the rest of its life. And then it goes home and it gets sick, and it’s got kennel cough, and you’re going to have to put it on antibiotics. And people are like,What did you give me? You know, it’s like the perception is still, like, this is property, and this animal is a living, breathing creature, and it’s going to get sick just like your baby does. And that’s why we try to tell people when we do adoption counseling is this is a living creature and we cannot guarantee that it’s not going to get sick; and it’s just like a child. If you were adopting a baby, if it gets sick, are you going to take it back and say, give me another one?  Are you going to take it to the doctor?

And so, that’s part of trying to get the word out and trying to get vets, kind of on board too, that are out there to say, You know, this is a shelter dog and they didn’t know where it came from, or (da da da da).  And a lot of times you get a vet that says, Oh, my God! You adopted from a shelter? What were you thinking?! This dog is disease-ridden. Get it out of here.  So, nobody’s on the same page, and so you know, if people actually make it to our door, that’s a huge hurdle we’ve just gone over.

And so you have to make sure that the staff is welcoming and they’re friendly, and we’re answering their questions and getting them everything that they need to know, and sometimes it’s just an overload. They go back there and they look at, you know, forty dogs and they’re like, Oh, man, that’s too many for me. You know, I can’t handle this.  Or they look at the cats and they just in the back of their mind, well, if I don’t give them a home, they’re going to be euthanized. So you have to get over all of those hurdles, and it’s a miracle we adopt out any, actually. When it comes right down to it, it’s a friggin miracle. And so, you’ve got to be appreciative to those people. And we try, we try really hard, but there are so many other things that we have going on around us that sometimes they don’t get their proper, you know, everything they need to know.

I have to say there’s a lot of organizations out there that are trying to help. Like Science Diet, they provide us our food for free. The only thing I have to pay for is the shipping and handling. And so, every adopter gets a free bag sent home with them. And that’s to try to get them on that good, nutritional food, so that we know they’re eating well.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

My dreams would be that everyone would spay and neuter! Spay and neuter and that we’ll be able to close this shelter soon.

I’m the county tax collector.

How would you describe what you do?

My job is to collect ad valorem taxes on real estate and personal property. And ad valorem means a percentage of a value. The value comes from the assessor. She gives me a value, I put the millage rate against it, and I collect that amount on real estate and on personal property and on business.

What does your work entail?

I’m responsible for this office and two satellites offices. My job entails personnel issues, time issues, I also go to associational meetings. Right now, we’re putting in a new computer software system which is taking up a whole lot of our time.

[the misconception is] that we’re a little bit ruthless…we’re not necessarily ruthless, we want to call it consistent. I treat everybody alike: rich, poor, whatever. I’m here to serve the people of this county…I just do my job here. I come to work and go home like everybody else.

My number one job is to make sure that we’re collecting taxes and collecting the right amount, and then we disburse it. I have to make sure the taxes were collected at the correct millage rate for the right schools, and for each school district, and the city and county. Eighty percent of the funds goes to schools, ten percent goes to cities, and about ten percent goes to the counties.

How did you get started?

I began on the quorum court. I was on the quorum court for 8 years when this job kind of opened and I had to make a decision.

The quorum court was taking so much of my time I had to either get in or get out of politics. I enjoyed county government, and this job came open, so I ran for the position and got it 6-1/2 years ago.

What do you like about what you do?

I like working with county government. It is really unique, you meet a lot of statewide officials, we all do the same things because state government is just a collection of what the county government does. It’s really unique. I guess one of my big jobs is you deal with the odd things that come along, and it’s these problems that come along that challenge you most. We deal with bankruptcies and we deal with delinquent people that won’t pay. We also use the county attorney. He will file liens against these people, and we can have personal property sales to get the taxes paid. We can also sell businesses if someone is delinquent, but everyone usually pays so we haven’t had any real sales yet.

What do you dislike about being a tax collector?

Sometimes you find people with hardship cases, like poor little ladies on fixed incomes come in and say, “My taxes have went up. How am I going to pay for it?” . You hate to hear these stories and they’re heart-wrenching a lot of times. You’ll hear, “My husband died and I didn’t know if the land is going to be sold at auction, and they’re trying to come up with money and ask “Can I please just wait?”. And I’m in a position where I have to work by the law. Which I’m glad, I’m kind of glad that I got a law that I have to work with and that’s the final determining factor. So, even though my heart goes out to these people, and it tears you up sometimes, but you have to go ahead and send those to the cases to the State. We do work with businesses who can’t pay and we will set up a payment plan for them. And as they pay off their delinquents and catch up and are current, we will give them their clearance. And they may not be fully paid up, but as long as we’ve set up an agreement, which is a signed notarized agreement and they make these payments, then we’d work with them and then they’d catch up over a period of hopefully around one year. Some of them may have to go beyond that. But we try and work with people to get paid up.

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

I’m on a salary.

How much money do you make as a tax collector?

It is now somewhere in the neighborhood of 70,000 a year.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

It doesn’t require necessarily a college education. I don’t have a college education, but I had a background in business when I went into the quorum court. To do it nowadays you really just need some computer skills.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The challenging thing about this job is trying to get information from the assessor and getting all the information the right time of the year. There’s always hold ups, there’s always lawsuits, there’s always things that have be taken care of quickly. Because we get real busy at certain times in the year.

What is most rewarding?

To me it’s very rewarding that we can handle so many people that will pay the last week of the year, and most people are coming in here later and later, closer to the last day to pay October 10th. So the fact that I’m responsible for having a system and personnel that can handle that high volume is very rewarding.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

You need to know Excel, Word, and Access, and just be familiar with your computer in general. You need to really work in some area of bookkeeping or accounting, because that’s what we are, bookkeepers for the county. We keep records. We collect money. It would be good to either work in the office or work in county government. It also helps having experience dealing with personnel issues. I’m constantly having to hire and replace people, so knowing how to hire good people is very important.

How much time off do you get/take?

I’ve seminars and schools that I’m constantly attending, but as far as personal time it’s usually around two weeks per year.

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

That we’re a little bit ruthless. But we’re not necessarily ruthless, we want to call it consistent. I treat everybody alike: rich, poor, whatever. I’m here to serve the people of this county. And some people are a little bit, you know, I got to go to see the tax collector. I go to church and he’s the mean old tax collector, whatever. It’s kind of a misconception and I just do my job here. I come to work and go home like everybody else.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

My goal is very simple. I’m right now putting in a new software system. I’m trying to get everything on the computer. My goals would be that you can go online and see the delinquent taxes that’s another way of encouraging people to pay delinquent taxes, be putting their names online. I think I’m looking for being here another six, eight years, and then retire.

I make beer.

How would you describe what you do?

Well, brewing is about 80% cleaning, so some say we’re glorified maids. I don’t like that term, but you have to be exceptionally clean in the brewing industry, so you’re always cleaning something. Whether it be circulating chemicals in a tank to clean it and then circulate chemicals to sterilize it and then, or maintaining your draft lines need to be clean because bacteria can build up in them. So you’re always cleaning something. Even during a brew day anywhere the beer or wort—before it’s beer it’s wort—comes in contact, you have to make sure that chemical passes through those pipes or hoses or valves and fittings.

…it’s still work but it’s work that you love. It’s not like you wake up in the morning like, “Oh, crap! I got to go make beer today!”

Besides that, there’s small amount of paperwork involved. You have to do your paperwork for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Twice a month, they get paperwork sent to them, and they get $7 a barrel that we produce. The state gets a percentage of beer that we sell and so there’s a small amount of paperwork. I’m not a desk-type of person, and a nightmare job for me would be sitting in front of a computer, in an office. So this is neat because you’re always on your feet. It’s very physical work, but you’re doing something different. Creating recipes is a fun part of it. When I was searching for jobs and I ended up here, I liked the pub environment and a smaller system where I can use my creative freedom. I can create new batches of beer, keep the customers on their toes as what’s coming out next; different styles, that kind of thing.  And then taking existing recipes and tweaking the recipes slightly to try and improve them. And the only way to really do that is change one small thing at a time. You can’t, change your water treatment and add different hops or different yeast strain, all three things, and then expect to know what the difference is. You have to do one subtle thing at a time. When I was searching for this current brew job, I had been offered positions in a micro brewery or production plant, where it’s basically a beer factory at that point where you’re, you know, at 2:10, you start this pump and at 2:30, you move this lever and do this. And you’re brewing the same beers day in day out, and you got the bottling line and the tagging line. That’s not a good job for me to have. I really like the small pub environment where I can come out and say hi to the customers, or you see a sample platter go out and you could approach the table after they’re half-way through them, and find out what they like, what they didn’t like, and what could I do to make it better kind of thing.

What does your work entail?

Typically, nine to five. Brew days are always longer. Brew days here tend to be about ten hours. There’s not so many events in this area because there’s not a lot of breweries, but coming from Chicago, it seemed like there was a beer event every weekend, and I would attend as many as possible to spread the word for the pub and get people introduced to Kraft Beer in general. But they’re long, labor-intensive hours.

…that’s one of the beautiful things about brewing. It’s as complicated as you want it to be or it’s as simple as you want it to be. I’ve had great homebrew from extract formulas and I‘ve talked to people who have Doctorates in Fermentation Science that make great beer…

I like to fall into a schedule where I can get weekends off. That’s not going to happen here just because we do tours on Saturday. So typical days off here would be Sunday, Monday—because those are your slower days and because Monday we’re closed here—so that makes sense.

How did you get started as a brewmaster?

I have a pretty unique story. I mean, most people homebrew and develop a love for it and decide to seek it out as a career and go to school for it. Mine is completely different than that. My father was a school teacher, and he started collecting beer cans in the ‘70s when it was real popular…And since he had summers off, we would actually camp at campgrounds as a family vacation, and tour breweries. And in each brewery, we went to get a couple of cans for his collection. And we were doing this since I was like four or five years old. Now this is the early to mid ‘70s when there weren’t brew pubs or micro breweries, they were all very large industrial-size brewing facilities. And growing up in the Chicago area, there were really none in Chicago to speak of, so we would go to Stroh’s in Detroit and we’d go to Hamm’s in St. Paul. And we’d see Pabst and Schlitz and Miller in Milwaukee, and we would go to Lacrosse, Wisconsin where they had Old Style… And we would tour all these plants all around the Midwest pretty much. And it left a huge impression on me as a young boy, walking into these breweries and seeing these tanks that go up seven stories and the smell of beer on the ground and the cold rooms and the smell of the wort boiling with the hops. And I could remember being in a mid-sized brewery in O’Clare, Wisconsin. It was like a 50-barrel brew house, pretty small compared to some of the other large ones. And the brew master was giving the tour—and a big burly German guy with a big beer belly and wearing suspenders and stuff looks at his watch and he’s like, “Oh, it’s time to add the hops.” And he’s like, “Hey, kid. Come here,” and he points to me—and I was about seven years old at this time—and he says, “Climb up this ladder and I’m going to hand you this bushel of hops and dump it in, but don’t fall in the kettle.” And I remember climbing up the ladder and looking at this big tank boiling and squirting…I dumped in the bushel of hops, and I remember being seven years old and thinking like, “This is what I want to do when I grow up.” And so, freshman year, I sit down with your guidance counselor in high school and he’s like, “So what do you want to do with your life?” kind of thing. I said, “I really want to be a brewmaster,” then he looks at me and he like throws his pen across the desk and folds his arms back, and he said “I’ve been doing this for thirty-two years and I’ve never heard anything like that. I’ve heard, “I want to be a bartender or I want to work as a beer distributor kind of thing, but I’ve never heard anybody say that.” And he’s like, “Well, let’s check it out.” So he gets down on his primitive Apple computer at that tim and lo and behold, there’s actually a school in Chicago that teaches how to make beer. And this the Seibel Institute of Technology and they’ve been teaching how to make beer since the 1870s. And for the longest time, you either went to Chicago, Illinois to learn how to make beer or you went to Munich, Germany where you better speak fluent German because they don’t have English translators. So I’m like, “That’s great!”. We looked further into it and the courses were quite expensive. At that time, it was about $10 or $12,000 dollars to go attend an eight-week course where you’re basically there nine to five and you’re just inundated with a plethora of information. So, in high school, I took a lot of math and chemistry and biology, and ended up going to community college where I furthered my chemistry and biology thinking that this is what I’m going to need. I ended up getting a job at UPS to kind of pay bills while in school, and save my money to go to beer school. And right before I turned 21, at my hometown of Burlingame, Illinois, a small brew pub opened up called the Wine Keller. And I’m like, “This is unbelievable! There’s actually a brewery in my hometown.” But I wasn’t 21 yet. So, as soon as I turned 21…the owner had a free tour and tasting to promote his new company, and they’d been around for maybe a year at the most, and I went there with my family and my girlfriend at the time, and did the tour. And the brewmaster was a German guy named Udo, and during the tour, he had mentioned that his son Christopher was the assistant brewer, but he was attending college in August and he needed someone to fill his shoes. And I thought, “No way! This is unbelievable!” So after the tour, I pulled him aside, introduced myself. I said, “I’ve always had a love for beer. I’ve wanted to be a brewmaster since I was a kid. I’m saving my money to go to beer school, and he’s like, “Oh, that sounds great,” he’s like, “Why don’t you start tomorrow?” And I mean, literally, I had been 21 for three or four days and I’m working in a commercial brewery now. So I was part-time assistant apprentice for six years. During those six years, there’s numerous brewmasters that came and went. As it turns out, this German named Udo was quite a stickler to work for, wasn’t very people-friendly. And I was still working at UPS at the time so I never did attend a beer school, but I learned hands on from numerous brewmasters, some who have gone on to open their own very prominent breweries themselves. So then it came down to a career choice in the mid ’90s of “Am I going to drive a brown truck the rest of my life or am I going to make beer?” Well, driving a brown truck, you’re a teamster, you get union, you get great benefits, you make great money, and then I’m thought, “Well, then I’m dealing with, brown packages, wearing the same uniform every day, doing the same route every day, in Chicago weather and Chicago traffic,” and thought, “I want to make beer.” So, I bounced around quite a few breweries in Chicago, the last one ended up canceling the brewing operations on me with four days’ notice. And I had an eight-month old daughter at the time, and my wife who worked for the same company, got let go as the party planner, so we were both without a job kind thinking, “What are we going to do?” So I got my résumé together and the owners of this brewery actually contacted me through a person who had done some brewery work here. And then I did a phone interview, they sent my family down back in July to check the area out, see if you liked it. They made me a nice offer, and I accepted and sold my house, and I’m here now.

What do you like about what you do?

Well, the creative freedom that I had mentioned. I love interacting with the customers. I love the sights and smells of making the beer. If I don’t want to deal with the public I could close the door and turn the tunes up, enjoy music all day as I’m working. Or I can go out and visit with the customers and ask them what they like or don’t like about the beer. And, of course, I have a passion for beer and I love good quality handcrafted beer, so that’s the main part. And then getting free beer and food in the process is a nice perk.

What do you dislike about being a brewmaster?

I dislike the heat, especially here, the brewery here, for some reason, has no fresh air coming into it, and we just had a real hot spell and it was absolutely brutal. I’m down two belt sizes in four weeks because of it. But you basically, from the time you start till the time you finish, you are completely sweating. I’ve worked at other breweries that had, dedicated air conditioning units just for the brew house—and it was never uncomfortable— but you still got sweaty during periods of the brewing because you’re dealing with steam and heat and hot things. But that’s the most difficult part that I dislike is the heat.

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

It’s a salary position with benefits. This particular job helps with insurance. You get a twenty dollar a day allowance for food and two free beers a day. Other companies will offer a 401k and profit sharing, part ownership where they will take a part of your salary and then you’ll be a part of the profits of the business.

How much money do you make as a brewmaster?

With all the benefits involved is between $40,000 and $50,000.

What education or skills are needed to be a brewmaster?

The biggest thing that helps is home brewing. You’re starting at home and tinkering around with recipes and switching from extract to all-grain and seeing how that works, and trying out different styles and using different yeast strains. And then a solid education will help. I know the University of California, Davis, has a bunch of different beer programs. I think the University of Wisconsin offers some beer programs, and definitely the Seibel Institute of Technology, that I mentioned, in Chicago is one of the most renowned brewmaster schools. Definitely willing to work physical labor, the ability to handle heat, the ability to work long hours—they can be long hours especially if you’re on your own. You need to have a solid foundation of Chemistry and Biology, which isn’t completely necessary—and that’s one of the beautiful things about brewing. It’s as complicated as you want it to be or it’s as simple as you want it to be. I’ve had great homebrew from extract formulas and I‘ve talked to people who have Doctorates in Fermentation Science that make great beer so, it’s just all those things.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The most challenging aspect is probably keeping up with demand. I’ve worked at brew pubs where you can make a batch of beer and you don’t have to worry about making it for month or two because it’s a lower demand setting. Here it’s really busy, so trying to predict the future of saying, “Okay, this tank is getting low, you better have a back-up for it,” because beer takes two to six weeks to age depending on the style so, planning for the future and keeping up with production is one of the most challenging aspects.

What is most rewarding?

Most rewarding is sitting down after a long hard workday and enjoying a cold beer, absolutely. And just hearing the feedback from the customer saying how much they love your beer or, you know, “What did you do to change it? I love it so much better”. That kind of thing.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I would say get a home brew kit. Go to a home brew shop either online or in your neighborhood and ask a lot of questions, read a lot of books, subscribe to the beer publications, there’s numerous of them, check out all the beer websites and learn as much as you can before you decide to make it a career. Some people don’t like the smell of wort boiling, some people don’t like the smell of (spun grain), it’s revolting to some. I personally love it and can’t believe that some people find it offensive. I would say, find out if you like it first. I mean, most people think it’s going to be great, you know, “I make beer,” and some people have quit careers to be brewmasters and love it to death, and others have left the brewing profession because the money isn’t there, especially without much experience. I guess the starting salary is usually around $30,000 or less, $35,000 on the high side, and a lot of people will think they’d love it as their passion and their career and decide that there’s no way to make enough money at it.

How much time off do you get/take?

Typically, it’s a two-week paid vacation and two days off a week, but that doesn’t include festivals which, like I said, luckily there’s not a lot of brewery events going on here. When you have those you can plan on busy weekend.

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

That we’re fat! No, you know, most people think of a brewmaster in a typical German environment with a big, burly, beer belly guy. My concept of the brewmaster, especially growing up as a kid, was always the guy with the white lab coat walking around with the clip board taking readings and telling people what to do. I guess another misconception would be that we’re drunks. I don’t know too many brewmasters who abuse the privilege. I mean, it would be the easiest thing in the world to come in and start nipping off of the tanks first thing in the morning, but you’re not going to get anything done and you’re going to end up hurting yourself because there’s a lot of dangerous chemicals and pumps and things and things that trip over always. Buy yeah, I would say those are the two biggest misconceptions.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Ideally, I would like to open my own. Location is the main thing. I mean, this place has a great location; you’re close to campus, there’s an endless supply of traffic, you have new customers every year. It’s an ideal situation. So I would say my ideal goal would be to make enough money. Save some money, and gather enough people and investors together to open my own location, in a small-scale, location to be determined.

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

Just that I’m doing something I love. I mean, it’s still work, sure I’d rather sit at home and watch cable or read a book and make money, it’s still work but it’s work that you love. It’s not like you wake up in the morning like, “Oh, crap! I got to go make beer today!” You have to have that passion and there are so many people I talk to that they hate their jobs. I love my job. I love what I do. Moving from Chicago to here was a huge change especially with a family. If I was a single guy, it wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but it’s something that the wife was there to support me in that decision and she knows that I didn’t want to get a job in a machine shop or something. And especially with this much skill and experience, I wanted to continue doing this.

What do you do for a living?

They call us a sorority house director which puts me in the property management category.

How would you describe what it’s like being a sorority house mom?

I live in a sorority house and every sorority house is different. But probably – and this sounds funny – about 90% of my job is just being here. They just want someone here to take care of things when they do arise.

What does your work entail?

Normally, on a day-to-day basis, I will oversee my staff, help to plan menus, and do the food orders or shopping. I also schedule repairs and maintenance to be done for the house. I eat all my meals with the girls and try to be here when they need me for something.

…these girls are my heroes. They’re funny, they’re bright. They party harder than any kids I’ve ever known, and then they study harder. They’re very well-rounded.

I communicate with the house corporation, which is the group of women or the corporation that actually owns the house. I do a good deal of talking or e-mailing with that group because they want to know everything that’s going on here and how. Like if the faucet in the senior wing is working, or what did we find out about that. Each house is going to vary widely though.

How did you get started?

I was looking for something to do. You know, you always find things in a funny way. My sister has a lake house in a little town called Wimberley, Texas. She called one day and said, “You need to be a sorority house mom.” I said “Yeah? That would be fun. But I don’t know how I would go about it” and she said, “Well, you call these two women.” And these two women run a business where they place house moms all over the country in sororities and fraternities—and they happen to be located in that little town. And they have an ad in the local paper and my sister had just picked up the local paper one day and thought to herself, “my sister would like this.” So I called, and the lady I talked to was Barbara, and she said, “Well, tell me about yourself.” And I started off with, “Well, I’m a Pi Phi…” and you know, went on to tell her that I was a CPA and had owned and operated a business and I’ve got a lot of experience in a lot of different things, most of which I don’t ever want to do again.

I love being mom. I like everything about being a mom…and I get all the fun parts. I get to have all the fun things, but yet I don’t have to pay for college or the orthodontist. I don’t have to bail them out of jail or anything the parents have to do. I just get the fun part of it.

So she told me what they had available all over the country and I immediately found a place I wanted to go. And it just happened to be the Pi Phi house there. Anyway, that’s how I got that job. I never would have known how to go about it. And probably half the women on this campus got their jobs through these two women in Wimberly, Texas.

What do you like about being a house mom?

Number one, these girls are my heroes. They’re funny, they’re bright. They party harder than any kids I’ve ever known, and then they study harder. They’re very well-rounded. I love being mom. I like everything about being a mom…and I get all the fun parts. I get to have all the fun things, but yet I don’t have to pay for college or the orthodontist. I don’t have to bail them out of jail or anything the parents have to do. I just get the fun part of it.

What do you dislike?

Oh, sometimes what I dislike is having to deal with my board. The women who are my bosses. Especially when I’ve got two or three of them with really strong opinions about how things ought to be done and one of them will come and tell me to do this, and another one will come the next day and say, “No, why don’t we do it this way,” and you know, it puts me in a bind because they’re each telling me something different and I don’t know who’s advice to follow.

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

I’m paid on salary.

How much money do you make?

$32,000 a year, and that’s for a 10-month contract, and then I get a $300 a month car allowance and $300 for insurance. I get my own apartment. I have no bills to pay.

They used to want to tell me everything that everyone didn’t like about something…be it the food or the colors of the rooms or whatever. I finally had to say, “I can cater to vegetarians. I can cater to allergies. I can cater to religious beliefs. I cannot cater to pickiness.” If you are so picky and you really don’t like Mexican food, that’s your problem, you’re going to want to go out and eat that day.

There are times I just feel like I’m being paid a whole lot to do nothing.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

You have to like kids, if you don’t like college-age kids, this would not be the job for you.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The most challenging is getting through the first year. And I’ve heard that from others. That’s because you come in and everyone is used to things being done a certain way, but they don’t want to tell you what that is. When I came in I even asked the girls, “What do you see me doing? What would you expect from me because I don’t know.” And they never told me. And then they’d sit around and grouch, “Well, she doesn’t do this and she doesn’t do that.” Well, tell me what you want! Sometimes it’s difficult, but I think we’re on a pretty even keel right now. They used to want to tell me everything that everyone didn’t like about something…be it the food or the colors of the rooms or whatever. I finally had to say, “I can cater to vegetarians. I can cater to allergies. I can cater to religious beliefs. I cannot cater to pickiness.” If you are so picky and you really don’t like Mexican food, that’s your problem, you’re going to want to go out and eat that day. Please don’t expect me to make everyone happy, every meal…And they do much better because they understand that I’m not here to be their short order cook. But if they’re picky, that’s their problem, not mine.

What is most rewarding about being a house mom?

I think what I like—it might not be true—but I like thinking that I have made an impact on their lives. It is so rewarding to hear from girls, or just to have them come by the house, who have graduated two or three years ago.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

When you go to a campus, find an ally, find a friend doing the same job, because a lot of times, all you really need is someone to talk to. She can’t solve your problems, but it does help if you have someone who kind of knows what you’re going through and can listen to you. What I have learned later life is to set boundaries. I think boundaries are really important. That first year I really didn’t have any. If they wanted to wake me up at 2 o’clock so that they could get juice, I’d get up and unlock the juice machine. Now I put out a 10 o’clock snack for them every school night, and if they come in at 9:15, I can say “Are you going to starve to death before 10?” “Well, no, but I just…” I said, “Are you going to starve to death before 10?” “No,” and I said, “Then wait until 10”. Now I have set more boundaries, and now they don’t test me quite as often. But I think as long as you’re willing to get up and do that for them, then they come to expect it. So, it’s kind of like being a mom or a dad that you have to know the things that you really want to do, but you also have to decide when you want to do them.

How much time off do you get/take?

Well, like today…it’s what, 10:30, 11 o’clock in the morning and I’m still in my robe. I didn’t put feet on the floor until 9:30. Technically, I get two weekends a semester off. The norm appears to be about one weekend a semester, and I think that I could push that issue and get more time. I just haven’t needed to go anywhere or wanted to go anywhere. I get all the Christmas break, Spring break, Thanksgiving and all of that off and I’m paid. I get the two months, June and July off in the summertime, for which I’m not paid. I’d tend to sit at home and watch Law & Order no matter where I was, but if I want to go out to eat with a friend, I can do that. I’ll have my cell phone with me and if for whatever reason they needed to call me, I could come back. And that doesn’t really happen that often. The parents all have my cell phone, and I’ve never gotten a call from one of them at three in the morning saying “Where is Mary?”. They have called in the daytime and said, “Mary has Strep throat. Would you go check on her?” and I’d say “Sure, no problem!”. I think they like knowing that I’m here, and that I can take their temperature and I can recommend that they go to the doctor if I think they need to.

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

A common misconception would be that we’re all 75 years old and we just kind of sit in our apartments all day and do nothing. When I was in a sorority I kind of likened it to turning on a light switch. I don’t know how it works, I just knew that every day I’d go down, there was food. And then when I flipped the switch, the light’s going to come on. I don’t know how it works. I didn’t need to know how. But there really is more to it.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

My goal is very simple. It’s to make this chapter the best in the country. The chapter where I went to college, just won the Balfour Cup, which is the national award for excellence in Pi Phi. It’s given out to one chapter every year. And I was just thrilled to bits that my chapter won it, but now my goal is for us to win here.

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

By and large how you feel about your job is really determined by your personality and your choices. I mean we each have obstacles that we don’t like, be it the house corporations or bratty girls, or lack of funds for what we consider important. So you can go in and say, “Well, they don’t do this and therefore I hate it.” Or you can also choose to say, “Well, they do this. You know what? I’m going to work with that. I’m going to do it their way.” You really just have to be flexible. I would say flexibility is the key to it and maintaining a positive attitude.

I’m a degreed chemical engineer, but I don’t really do per se, what you might think of as chemical engineering. It’s more of a sub-discipline of chemical engineering.  Right now my job title is Heat Transfer Department Manager.

How would you describe what you do?

I work for a stainless steel fabrication company, builds tanks, pressure vessels, heat exchangers. My particular department is heat transfer, which is along the lines of heat exchangers and general heat transfer applications.

What does your work entail?

My work is multi-faceted, which most engineering jobs will be. You’re kind of the catch-all for everything that others don’t know how to do and don’t want to do, so technically, I’m supposed to be spending most of my time reviewing and approving drawings and assembly layouts for the various components that are sold.

…it’s hard to find an out-of-work engineer…The pay’s good, the benefits are good, so if you’re not a dumbass and you at least show some initiative when you work, it’s pretty easy to make a good living as an engineer.

It’s a very custom line that I manage, so every job is different. We don’t really have a lot of cookie-cutter parts where it’s standard designs with parts off the shelf or piecing together. It’s very blacksmith and thats the part where I come in. I review the drawings for accuracy and also check them for design considerations as far as pressure vessel code is concerned. ASME Code, which is American Society of Mechanical Engineers, has several volumes of literature, which outline the design consideration and rule for pressure vessels.

How did you get started?

It’s hard to say I always wanted to be an engineer. I mean, who always wants to be an engineer? It’s not exactly a glamorous position. But I was always good at math and science and pretty good at school in general. Those things coupled with the fact that it’s hard to find an out-of-work engineer, made it something I wanted to get into. The pay’s good, the benefits are good, so if you’re not a dumbass and you at least show some initiative when you work, it’s pretty easy to make a good living as an engineer. And it’s also a career that you don’t have to make your life, and that’s important to me. I wanted free time to have a life of my own. I’m not working 20-hour shifts like doctors and I don’t have to take my work home.

Pick your engineering discipline in college, something that interests you and then be sure and focus on the grade side of it to some degree because it’s worth its weight in gold when you’re out there in the real world. People really do honestly notice a GPA that is above average.

I shut the door of my office and the work stays there 99% of the time. I currently manage a department and have employees under me which is something that I wanted to do as soon as possible in my career. And it’s something that’s applicable too, it’s a great resume builder. The sooner you can get management experience under you, the better off you are and in just about any case. So, no, it’s not something I dreamt about as a five-year-old boy, but it pays the bills and it’s fun. I enjoy it and it doesn’t bog me down.

What do you like about what you do?

I love the freedom my position has. Everything we make in one form or another is some custom part. So, I get to design a new heat transfer or a heat exchanger application virtually every day, multiple times a day, which is kind of cool. It’s hard to get bored. It’s kind of cool because I see everything from the beginning all the way to the end when it’s shipped out off a dock. That’s something that it’s kind of hard to find in engineering, honestly. That quick turnaround and instant gratification, where you say, “Hey, I designed this thing three weeks ago”, and now it’s shipping. That’s kind of cool. I’ve had jobs in the past where you’re on a project for two years and you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.

What do you dislike?

I guess probably one of my biggest gripes would be the interface that engineering can sometimes have with the manufacturing department where it’s easy to come off as enemies to one another. Maybe our drawing package didn’t exactly spell out every step by step what was needed to manufacture something and then they do it incorrectly. And that can creates issues because, the part gets scrapped, or it’s late, it cost the company a lot of money, all these bad things and everybody starts pointing fingers and that’s frustrating. That’s just the facts of life. But it’s not that way in most cases, but I guess if I had to say what I dislike, that’d probably be the most obvious thing.

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

I’m salaried employee.

How much money do you make as chemical engineer?

It’s $69,000 right now.

What education or skills are needed to be a chemical engineer?

Well, I guess simply put, a Bachelor’s degree in some form of engineering discipline, preferably mechanical or chemical would be a good place to start. There’s probably dozens of different disciplines within engineering. But really, the meat of them are chemical, mechanical, and electrical. And if you major in one of those, and obtain your degree with a decent GPA, you’re virtually guaranteed a decent salary. You’re guaranteed, health insurance, benefits, 401k, etc.

What is most challenging about what you do?

I guess the fact that I am the final sign-off on just about any heat exchanger or heat transfer design that the company makes. One of the pitfalls of being an engineer is that any time something comes across someone’s desk that they don’t know how to do they typically go to engineering. If any question is too hard for anyone else in the company to answer, they’ll come find one of us engineers. So that’s kind of tough to be the focal point of everyone’s tough questions, because you’ll be thinking you’re intelligent, and all of a sudden someone comes and asks you something and you don’t know.

What is most rewarding?

Every project we do in my department comes across my desk from the beginning when it’s conceived, and I get to monitor it as it goes through the production process and until it’s shipped. And sometimes, even installed on the customer’s site. So, to me, that is rewarding.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Pick your engineering discipline in college, something that interests you and then be sure and focus on the grade side of it to some degree because it’s worth its weight in gold when you’re out there in the real world. People really do honestly notice a GPA that is above average. People realize engineering school isn’t necessarily easy and if you show that you’re at least halfway intelligent and dedicated to something in school, then that will be rewarded.

How much time off do you get/take?

I work Monday through Friday and I have three and a half weeks’ vacation right now plus I get 10 or 11 company holidays. Basically a month and some change, plus or minus.

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

People think we are just tucked away in corners, in cubicals somewhere, in dark rooms and no one really deals with engineers. I think that’s the biggest misconception is that engineering is just kind of these guys that do calculations all day and don’t really have to interact with the general public. In each of my past jobs that’s simply not the case. It’s important to have people skills, and if you do, you’re very valuable to a company. If you are an engineer that enjoys working with others and works with them well, you’re a great asset to any company.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

I guess my goal would be to someday leave the technical side of engineering and be more on the business side, and do more of business management or department management. Right now I’m a manager over the design side of things where I’d like to get away from that and do more higher level management on the business side.

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

In my opinion, engineering right now is a very good career to go into if you’re going to college or in college just because it’s such a high demand. There are so few engineers right now it’s pretty easy to get a job. Like I said, if you’re an engineer that’s not a dumbass and you want to work, it’s pretty easy to find a well-paying job.

Business Dean and Professor of Business.

How would you describe what you do?

I basically manage the college.

What does your work entail?

It ranges considerably. I’m on the road a whole lot. I work a lot of nights, a lot of weekends. It’s definitely more than a full time job. It entails a blend of both internal and external activities. Internal to the college, internal to the university, and then external dealing with alums and friends of the college, donors to be specific.

How did you get started?

There was a lot of serendipity to it. When I was an undergraduate, I never had any clue that I would get a Ph.D., much less, go down this particular trail. Careers have life cycles, and it was just when I came to various forks in the road that I took those particular forks and I ended up at this node, if you will. I think I was a fairly typical of undergraduate students at the time, and this goes back to the Vietnam War. After I got my undergraduate degree, I was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army for a while in the Medical Service Corp. When I got out, I pursued a Master’s degree and that’s when I really began to think that this might be for me. Prior to my military service, I really hadn’t thought about that much. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I was pretty young but I enjoyed the Master’s program and I had some professors that encouraged me to continue my education and then one thing led to another.

What do you like about being a college dean?

I like the variety. Like tomorrow for instance, I’ll have a meeting with all the Department Chairs in the morning and then immediately after that I’ll hop a plane to St. Louis where I’ll attend a meeting. Then I come back early the next morning and I’ll hop another plane to San Francisco and meet with the University’s San Francisco Alumni Society. So, you just never know. It’s a lot of fun.

What do you dislike?

I think it’s being in a large bureaucratic organization. It’s not like being an entrepreneur where you can make rapid decisions. They’re more hurdles to jump, so that tends to slow things down. The good news about it though is that it highly encourages involvement. There’s a lot of participation in decision making. That’s probably a good thing, but on the other hand, it does slow things down.

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

There’s a national market for Deans. When you come in from the outside the university as a new Dean, there’s a market and your salary depends on your record up to that point. It depends on the kind of school that you’re going to. Like is it a baccalaureate only university? Is it a Master’s, an undergraduate? Is it a Ph.D., a Master’s, and undergraduate? Where does it fit in the overall constellation of universities? Is it a public, is it a private? If it’s a public, is it a top 25 public? If it’s a private, is it an elite private? All of those things factor into the compensation package. So then, based upon where you personally fit and what type of university that is that you’re going to, and what discipline you’re in because Liberal Arts Deans tend not to make as much as Engineering Deans, Engineering Deans tend not to make as much as Medical School Deans. All of those things are thrown into the hopper and something spits out at the end.

How much money do you make as a dean?

In the range of $250,000 to $320,000. And then if you are at Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, Northwestern, those kind of elite private, if you are at a school like that and you are the Dean in this particular discipline, probably you’re compensation is at least $400,000 for 12 months. And there’s all kinds of different packages out there. Does this person get a car allowance? Do they get a housing allowance? Do they get an entertainment allowance? Do they get a country club membership? Do they get all these kinds of things? And the reason that those things are included is that Deans in this discipline are boundary spanners, and they spend a considerable amount of time interacting with others. This particular college raised $44 million last year, that’s a lot of money. And that’s necessary for us to be successful. So, somebody’s got to be out there raising those dollars, so naturally you have to do a lot of entertaining and traveling.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

There are two ways that it can be done. One is through a purely academic way where someone has an undergraduate degree, has a Master’s degree and has a Ph.D. in the appropriate discipline, and he or she also has a proven track record of performance over time. Typically, they have a record that merits full professor rank at the particular university, and that’s not easy to have a record that merits that at a university like this. I think the best candidates have a proven record of increased administrative responsibilities over time. So, you may have started out as an MBA Director, then you became a Department Chair, then you were Assistant Dean, then maybe you were Associate Dean and so forth to become Dean. On the other hand, sometimes you might have someone that becomes the Dean of a school that has a different track record of having nationally renowned business success. They may be a former CEO of a major company and it also just so happens that they have at least a Master’s degree, maybe even a Ph.D. But, they haven’t been in academia, they haven’t been teaching and researching and all of that. They have been following their career. Sometimes, those people become Deans.

What is most challenging about being a college dean?

I would say that the most difficult aspect is escalating and ever changing expectations of multiple stakeholders over time. You have students, faculty, staff, you have alums, you have senior administrators, you have competitors, you have donors, you have employers, and so they expect more and more. And what they expect may not be a particular segment of that stakeholder. Their set of expectations may not be consistent with what another group has. And so you can’t both jump and sit still at the same time. You can’t please everybody at the same time. That’s probably the most difficult part.

What is most rewarding?

When you feel that you’ve made a difference. Particularly if you’ve hired a good faculty member that you feel that would make a difference for the college, or you promote someone that’s outstanding, or you started a new program that seems to work. Things like that are fun.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

I would say that it would be unlikely that someone would consider being a Dean, at least as an undergraduate. I think it’s something that just has more of an evolutionary process. If someone becomes a professor first, and then he or she gets tenure second, then if someone wants to cross over to the dark side of administration, maybe they would consider it.

How much time off do you get/take?

Deans are, for the most part, considered 12-month employees. This is a regular person job, this isn’t like a university job, you don’t get semester breaks. You might get a couple of days off for Christmas or Thanksgiving, things of that nature. But except for those few circumstances and designated state holidays you just get vacation time. I have a lot of time built up that I haven’t taken and I’m sure I’ll never take it.

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

I think a lot of people are not sure what a Dean does. They don’t know if the Dean is the same thing as the Chancellor, or the President, or the Provost. There is some confusion about that. Internally, there’s no problem, but externally, I think a lot of people that aren’t in the academy so to speak, are a little lost.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

I hope that this particular college continues on its very positive trajectory. It’s made great strides. So, I hope that we can keep that momentum going, and I hope that we can do some new things as well. We’re starting a program in China in January and and we’re excited about that. And we started a new undergraduate program that provides undergraduates with a series of activities that we think will broaden their education beyond the classroom and it will help them in their retention. We hope that will lead them to stay here longer and to succeed.

What do you do for a living?

Corporate pilot/Director of Aviation Safety

How would you describe what you do?

My main job is flight operations for a corporation, flying corporate jets for the company employees and perspective clients as well as executives of the company itself. The safety manager side, I’m in charge of ensuring safe flight operations for the travel department as well as the ground crew and our internal travel department, I conduct safety audits, establish a safety reporting system, developing a safety manual and complying with all Federal Aviation Regulations and NBAA and Flight Safety Foundation guidelines.

What does your work entail?

Everything is based off of duty time and duty time is one hour prior to the flight that day and then one hour after the flight.

The other day, I left at eight o’clock in the morning, went to San Diego and back, and was home by one, then went to New York City that night. There’s not a whole lot of people that say they’ve been coast to coast in one day, and then you end up hanging out in Times Square that night, so that’s pretty good living.

If I count just my duty time alone, it’s about 50 hours a week and I normally work about four days a week. A lot of times my weekend is Tuesday, Wednesday or Tuesday, Thursday. And then the safety manager part is about another 20 hours a week. Normally I spend in the air a week, probably about 15 hours.

How did you get started?

I went to school at Kansas State University and went through their Aeronautical Science program. It’s supposed to be a a Bachelor’s of Aeronautical Science degree, but I actually did a Bachelor’s in Aeronautical Engineering. You go through your ground school and flight lessons to private instrument commercial multi-engine and then flight instructor, flight instructor instrument, and then multi-engine instructor. It’s normally a four-year program. If you don’t have a whole lot of money and you’re paying out-of-state tuition, you can get it done in 17 months. Then you’re just basically hoping to get hired on by somebody to build multi-engine time and gain experience.

What do you like about being a corporate pilot?

Probably the best part about what I do is actually flying the airplane. I’m an instructor in the airplane, so any time I’m in the airplane, I am the Captain, I am the pilot-in-command whether I’m sitting in the left seat or the right seat. Flying the airplane, going to different destinations, you see different types of weather, you see different runways.

The number one thing people need to know is it’s not just getting up there and flying a plane. It’s not just like getting up there and driving a car. Flying a plane is extremely easy, but knowing the systems, knowing how to interact with your crew member, knowing the weather, and knowing your limitations and the airplane’s limitations are pretty much where it’s at because, if you don’t know that, then you are going to kill yourself and you’re going to kill yourself real quickly. It’s — Aviation is very unforgiving. If you make a mistake, your likelihood of survival is about 10%.

extremely challenging and extremely rewarding at the same time. The other day, I left at eight o’clock in the morning, went to San Diego and back, and was home by one, then went to New York City that night. There’s not a whole lot of people that say they’ve been coast to coast in one day, and then you end up hanging out in Times Square that night, so that’s pretty good living.

What do you dislike?

The parts that I dislike is there’s a kind of uncertainty. Like right now, I’m home and I haven’t flown today. They could call me right now and I would have to be in the air in two hours. There is not a whole lot of ability to plan. Now, on the days that I know I have off, I can plan something. So, it has its pros and its cons, but the main part is just the uncertainty. But that’s pretty much aviation. You hurry up — Hurry up and wait. And sometimes, you end up sitting around and waiting and waiting and waiting to pick people up just for them to call you and say, “Hey, we’re not done. We’re going to need you to spend the night.”

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

I’m a salary position. I get all benefits, stock, 401k, life insurance, health insurance, all that kind of stuff. I can make overtime as well. If they call me to fly on my day off, I can tell them no or I can tell them yes. If I tell them yes, I make $500 cash. Just for flying that day. And it might be like to Kansas City and back and I’m gone three hours. Or they could fly me all day, and if they fly me over 12 hours, they have to pay me $700. If they fly me over an 18-hour duty day, it’s almost a grand.

How much money do you make as a corporate pilot?

I make $95,000 a year.

What education or skills are needed to be a corporate pilot?

90% of the time, they like for you to have a Bachelor’s Degree in just about anything. They don’t even care what it’s in. They just want a Bachelor’s Degree. Skill-wise, you have to have the appropriate ratings and the appropriate type ratings for the position. For my position, you’d have to be a commercial pilot, multi-engine, flight instructor, and then have the type ratings for each jet you fly. I have my APP and type rating and I’m a check airman and a multi-engine instructor.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Most challenging about what I do are the decisions you make in regards to weather, the decisions you make in regards to the approach. You’re ready to shoot into an airport, sometimes the weather gets so bad that you have to make that decision and say, “This is bad. We need to go somewhere else”, and you have the CEO on the plane and he needs to get to that airport so he can get to this meeting within 30 minutes, and you have to fly somewhere else that’s an hour away and he’s not going to make the meeting.

The number one advice I would offer is if you decide that this is something you want to do, go at it as a sprint, not a marathon. Get done as quickly as you can and be as thorough as you can and do not put off getting your ratings. Try to get all of your ratings done in two to three years. The longer it takes, the more expensive it becomes and the greater risk that you will not finish. Get in there, get it done, go pay your dues, and get doing the deal.

So you tell him, and he says, “Then I’m not going to make that meeting. There’s no point.” Okay, well, you hope that you’re not very far and you can make it back and not have to stop for fuel, but if you can’t you’re still in the same situation except now you have to find a good fuel stop and a good place where the weather’s not crappy, that you’re not increasing the risk of stopping anyways. It basically comes down to the decisions that you make due to weather and adverse conditions.

What is most rewarding?

The most rewarding part for me is, since I am an instructor, of the 14 pilots we have, I have been the primary instructor of 10 of them, and I see things that I do in 10 of those pilots. And of the 10 pilots that we have there, we’ve had the least problems and the lowest safety risks with those 10 guys. And the two of the guys that we see the most safety risks with are guys that were not under my direct training. So, the rewarding part for me is taking the guys from walking in the door to flying by himself.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

The number one advice I would offer is if you decide that this is something you want to do, go at it as a sprint, not a marathon. Get done as quickly as you can and be as thorough as you can and do not put off getting your ratings. Try to get all of your ratings done in two to three years. The longer it takes, the more expensive it becomes and the greater risk that you will not finish. Get in there, get it done, go pay your dues, and get doing the deal.

How much time off do you get/take?

I don’t know, maybe 160 days a year. The guaranteed days I will not work are 120 days a year. Those are days that I can pretty much count on not working and then I have 35 days of vacation a year. So, if I play my cards right, given my days that I’m guaranteed off, if I play my vacation correctly, I could essentially take two full months off. And be paid for it, and if they call me in to work extra, they have to pay me on top of my salary. That’s the huge advantage of flying corporate instead of commercial.

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

That pilots make a ton of money. That’s the number one thing. If you’re a pilot, then you’re going to make a ton of money, and that’s not the case. If you want to make six digits commercial, you will spend 15 years getting there. If you want to make six digits corporately, you’ll spend 10 years getting there. But your salary caps out faster in corporate than in commercial Commercial.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

In this career, eventually be the Chief Pilot of a major flight department and then eventually to a Director of Operations for a flight Department. And I would like to see myself retiring at about the age of 50 and then just become a FAA check examiner and give check rides and sign pilots off and do that kind of stuff.

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

The number one thing people need to know is it’s not just getting up there and flying a plane. It’s not just like getting up there and driving a car. Flying a plane is extremely easy, but knowing the systems, knowing how to interact with your crew member, knowing the weather, and knowing your limitations and the airplane’s limitations are pretty much where it’s at because, if you don’t know that, then you are going to kill yourself and you’re going to kill yourself real quickly. It’s — Aviation is very unforgiving. If you make a mistake, your likelihood of survival is about 10%.