Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
Veterans Archives is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Please visit our website for more information. www.veteransarchives.org
Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
Finding Purpose After Service: Steve Conaway's Journey
Some of life's most significant opportunities emerge from our greatest setbacks. Steve Conaway's journey from Air Force service to successful entrepreneurship proves this in remarkable fashion.
When Steve enlisted in 1968, he sought education and skills through Air Force service. After training as an air traffic controller, he was deployed to Vietnam, where he managed complex air traffic situations near the DMZ. Despite the high-pressure environment—controlling fighter jets conducting combat missions with minimal safety protocols—Steve thrived in the challenging conditions.
Upon returning stateside and transitioning to civilian life, his Air Force expertise landed him a position with the Federal Aviation Administration. His career path seemed predictable until 1981, when everything changed dramatically. As vice president of the air traffic controllers' union during the infamous PATCO strike, Steve found himself among the 14,000 controllers fired by President Reagan. More shocking was the administration's determination to prevent these professionals from finding employment elsewhere—pressuring potential employers and even foreign countries not to hire them.
What could have destroyed his career instead sparked remarkable innovation. Recognizing an information gap in the real estate industry, Steve created a mortgage rate reporting service that operated successfully for 32 years. Simultaneously, he leveraged his technical aptitude to build expertise in computer-aided design systems, eventually launching his own computer services company.
"In the long run, Reagan did me a favor," Steve reflects. "I wouldn't be here today with that stress." His unexpected career pivot likely extended his life while providing greater satisfaction than his original path.
Today, Steve continues serving his community as commander of a VFW post and senior vice commander of an American Legion post. His advice for others facing career upheaval? "If you feel you're good at something, pursue it. But have a plan and stick to it."
Today is Thursday, june 26th 2025. We're here with Steve Conaway, who served in the United States Air Force. So good afternoon, steve, good afternoon. Thanks for taking time out of your day to sit and talk with us.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for doing this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely my privilege to be here, so we'll start out real simple. When and where were you born?
Speaker 2:I was born on February 19th 1949, in Chicago, illinois. Okay, so did you grow up in Chicago? No, my parents left when I was six months old, so I have no knowledge of Chicago to speak of.
Speaker 1:No recollection of being in Chicago. No, none at all. Well, where did they go from Chicago?
Speaker 2:From Chicago. My dad was in advertising and he went to Topeka Kansas.
Speaker 1:Okay, what kind of advertising did he do?
Speaker 2:Mostly, it was called Capper's Farmers, which I believe was a magazine.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. And how long were you in Topeka? Until the fourth grade? Do you have any memories of being in Topeka?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, I can remember we lived fairly close to a creek and we were always down looking for frogs and climbing trees, which I fell out of one. But yeah, I have some memories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean, you don't climb trees and not fall out once in a while, right? So what are some of your fondest memories, then, of being in Kansas before you moved?
Speaker 2:Well, just as a young boy you know having a lot of fun, a lot of friends, because there was no cell phones or internet or anything like that. We were constantly outside playing and it's a lot different world today, but my recollection was that it was a great childhood.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so at the ripe old age of four, before you even started school, then you moved. And where did you move from there?
Speaker 2:To New York. Okay, and again, my dad was in advertising and being the advertising capital of the world, we moved there and he worked for multiple magazines Woman's Day, field and Stream. He actually did a story in Field and Stream on big family camping and that's pretty much where I was up until I went into the service All right Now were you in like New York, new York, were you upstate New York, huntington? Long Island, oh, so about 45 minutes outside of the city.
Speaker 1:Okay, but still kind of city living yeah, all right. And minutes outside of the city Okay, but still kind of city living yeah, alright and how was that different from Kansas?
Speaker 2:Not the only thing different was there wasn't a lot of woods, but we had the Huntington Bay and the harbor and Long Island Sound, so there was more of a watery type environment and you make a lot of friends there. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so did you have brothers and sisters. I had three sisters and two brothers. That's a big family. Yes, where did you fall in the pecking order? I was number two. Okay, all right, so you never really got to be the baby and you were never really the middle kid.
Speaker 2:Well, there's some disadvantages and advantages to that. My oldest sister, I think she had to be home by 9 on Friday, and Saturday I was 9.30 by the time it came to the sixth child. They didn't care if she came home at all. Right.
Speaker 1:You know a lot of people I talk to say that, like in a big family, you've got like all the baby books In the first kid, their baby books like a volume and a half and yeah, by the time they get to that last kid there's maybe three pictures in one sentence, right, yeah, is that kind of how it worked. Yes, now were you um pretty good friends with your, with your siblings? Did you hang out with your brothers and sisters at all?
Speaker 2:um, probably to uh the dismay of my older sister because, uh, this may have my older sister because she was closest to what I did. So, you know, I'd hang around and at that time we lived near a potato field and her friends, which were a lot of boys and girls, they would go out there and I would try and hang around with her and I'm not too sure she was always that happy about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine no one wants their younger brother hanging out right, right, I see. So how was school for you?
Speaker 2:I was a fair student, didn't have a lot of interest. I actually made a deal with my English teacher in my senior year that as long as I did my assignments and didn't cause any trouble, he'd make sure I got a passing grade to graduate.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you agreed not to make trouble. Was there something in the past there with him that made him think that maybe you would cause some trouble?
Speaker 2:No, not really. I mean, I didn't cause a lot of trouble and I don't think I ever had. My parents were never called to come to school or anything like that. But English was not my forte. I could have cared less about a noun and a verb, and so I just wanted to make sure I got through that course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you have any courses that you really liked in school?
Speaker 2:Well yeah, wood shop, metal shop. I played football in high school. I don't think I ever got but one game, but I was on the team and around the age I'm going to say of 15, I got a job in a local bowling alley and then eventually got interested in girls and you know all the things that a teenage boy does and that kind of. I lost interest in doing much else, and cars obviously.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, you know it's funny Like kids today are into cars like we were.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I mean I've rebuilt an engine on a car and I just to this day. I do my own oil changes. I do my own oil changes, I do my own brake jobs. I've got. I walk into Sears and the guy asks me if he can help me in the tool department. I'd say no, I'm pretty sure I have every tool you have in here, but I'm just looking around in case I don't.
Speaker 1:Maybe you could help him. Right, right, well, that's the other thing too. You walk into an auto parts store today and there's not a lot of car guys behind the counter either.
Speaker 2:I find.
Speaker 1:Right, you know I want to buy a spring for something and they want to know what size motor I have and whether it has air conditioning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they have to look it all up on the computer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember I had a car and I was going to put an aftermarket carburetor on. I was going to buy a Holley carburetor for it and I had to go round and round with the guy behind the counter. I'm like I know what I need, just sell me the carburetor, you don't need all that other stuff.
Speaker 2:Today, they don't even know what a carburetor is no less than a four barrel.
Speaker 1:That's true. That's true, or a six-pack, or any of the other great things that we got to see, right yeah. So yeah, so you make it through school. I wanted to ask, though, what drew you to play football for that season?
Speaker 2:Well, I'd always, since I was very young we'd go out and up to the field with four or five kids and play football. You know, I bought a helmet and I was always very interested in football. In junior high school the guidance counselor would call me in and he would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And I used to tell him my dad was in the Navy. So I'd say, well, I either want to join the Navy or I want to play football, and they'd look at me like, wow, that's some wild choices. Well, today, football players make millions of dollars. Maybe not so much in that day, but when it was kind of thought as being kind of strange at that time, it's not so strange anymore.
Speaker 1:Right, I never thought about it that way, though there's so many things that have changed over the years. I mean, sports figures back in the day were popular and people liked them, but they weren't making the kind of money they make now.
Speaker 2:Well being a New Yorker too. Mickey Mammal, roger Maris.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, Right Now. Were you there when the Brooklyn Dodgers? When did they leave New York?
Speaker 2:I don't think I ever went to see a Dodgers game. We'd go into Yankee Stadium occasionally and see the Yankees play. I don't think I was ever in Mets Stadium. Oh okay, I left New York when I was 19, so I'm not too sure. I think the stadium might have been brand new. I'm not even sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, big baseball town though? Yes, definitely. My brother-in-law is a huge Yankees fan.
Speaker 2:He lives in Arizona so I don't understand it, but he's a huge Yankees fan. I've got a brother who lives in St Louis and he's tortured by the Cardinals and the Yankees when they play. Oh poor guy.
Speaker 1:So you make it through school. Did you go right into the service at that point or did you go to college? What happened after school?
Speaker 2:I didn't have much interest in going to college and so I wanted to join the service to get an education. That's one of the reasons I picked the Air Force and, believe it or not, during that time with the draft there was a year waiting list to get into the Air Force and I ended up taking my draft physical the day before I was inducted into the Air Force and I asked my recruiter why should I bother to go into the city and take the draft physical? He says because for some reason you're not inducted and then you've got a problem. So I spent my last day as a civilian taking a draft physical.
Speaker 1:Oh great. And military physicals aren't the best either? No, Not at all. So you end up enlisting in the Air Force then yes, that's correct. Okay, and what was your job? What was your rating?
Speaker 2:I had very believe it or not what I did when I took the Air Force test. And there's four different areas. One of them was mechanical and I was very mechanical. I was what was called a pin chaser. I worked on automatic bowling machines and stuff like that worked on cars, had torn engines apart when I was a kid, lawnmower engines and put them back together. But I answered all those questions wrong. I had no idea what I was doing with mechanics because I didn't want to be in the motor pool. That wasn't the education I was trying to get. I had very high scores in administrative and general and I can't remember the other category. What I was trying to do was get into computers, which in 1968 were in their infancy. So my recruiter signed me up to get into computers. Little did I know. When I got down to basic training my score wasn't high enough to be in computers, so he kind of buffaloed me.
Speaker 1:Nice you. You buffaloed the test and your recruiter buffaloed you, yeah, yeah. So, before we get too far into it, I really want to know what was, what was that experience like for you getting to basic training, and what was it like when you arrived and what were your thoughts?
Speaker 2:Well, it was in May, a very hot, humid day, especially down in Texas by the time we got in. And, by the way, this was my first airplane flight ever.
Speaker 1:Really, yes, Did you wear a suit?
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't remember no.
Speaker 1:The reason I ask is I've talked to a couple of guys and their first airplane ride ever was to go to basic training and their parents, their moms, made them wear suits because that's what you did when you flew back in the day.
Speaker 2:No, I don't recall ever wearing a suit, I'm just curious. So anyway, to this day, on a dark, muggy day, it reminds me of flying into Texas. It was probably four o'clock in the morning. You're tired and you're thinking, oh boy, we're going to be able to finally get some rest. And that doesn't happen. You're not going to bed, boy, they're running you around and it's a real eye opener.
Speaker 1:Yeah, were you kind of double guessing your own judgment when you got off that plane? Not at all, I definitely wanted to serve.
Speaker 2:My mom wanted me to serve in the Air Force because she said she felt that I'd have less of a chance of going to Vietnam, which was not an issue for me, right, I wanted to go to be quite honest and within I'm going to say, a year and a couple of months, I had orders to Vietnam. Wow so, but that's not at all why I joined the Air Force.
Speaker 1:Right, so you get to basic training. It's hot, it's muggy and that's probably how it is the whole time. You're there, yes, so tell me a little bit about you. Get there and they're like, oh, you're not going into computers. What ended up happening with that portion of it.
Speaker 2:well, at that point you, you select I'm believing several different uh areas that you could work in, and one of them that I selected was air traffic control, and I had no idea what it was. I thought actually it was the guys with the wands that park airplanes no concept whatsoever of it. Right, and I ended up getting that, and when I got out of basic, I was sent down to Biloxi, mississippi, for the air traffic control school.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you know, that's interesting though with the military is like the names don't necessarily match, like what the job is. Right, I was in the Navy and I was a fire controlman and for years my mom thought I was a firefighter and I had to explain to her.
Speaker 2:No, mom, I start fires on other people's ships, right, well, when I got the orders, it was actually called an aerospace control systems operator. Wow Was what they called it, whereas today, if you were to say air traffic control or air traffic controller, everybody would know what you were talking about.
Speaker 1:Right Almost like it was written by an attorney or something. So how was your schooling then for that?
Speaker 2:Great, I was an honor graduate out of school. How was your schooling then? For that Great, I was an honor graduate out of school. It was a 16-week course in Biloxi, mississippi, at Keesler Air Force Base. So I had about a four-week time period where before I was actually going to get into this school. So they had you out sweeping the streets and doing all kinds of crazy stuff just to keep you occupied.
Speaker 1:Now was your schooling. Was it kind of almost like an extension of basic training, where they kind of still treated you like a basic trainee?
Speaker 2:Not quite as bad, but pretty close. You still marched and they still had a lot of control over you, versus two or three years later when you were now on your own and doing your job.
Speaker 1:Right, treated like an adult. Finally, yeah, so you go to that school At some point. Did you come home for leave?
Speaker 2:No, my brother had a friend that was coming down my younger brother, and so he came down to visit me, but other than that there was no leave. When I left school I was able to go back to New York. My base was going to be in New Hampshire, so I was able to get home for a few days, get my car and then drove up to New.
Speaker 1:Hampshire. Okay, and then how long were you stationed in New Hampshire? About a year, and you were just doing regular air traffic control duties. Then what was that?
Speaker 2:like yeah, it's a constant job with constant training. Every time you go to a new location you don't just instantly sit down and start controlling air traffic. You have to learn the area, you have to learn all the approaches. More often than not you're also controlling into satellite airports and stuff like that, so it's not uncommon. I would say I probably was a journeyman controller during that time of maybe two months where I could actually work the position by myself.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's pretty standard. Then you go there, you have to learn, and then you. So not bad if you're into continuous learning. Right, yeah, and what was it like there? Was it fairly busy.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't necessarily say so. It was a SAC base, which meant that we had B-52s and KC-135s. No civilian traffic. Civilian traffic on the SAC base are not allowed to land, even with an emergency, because of the security involved with the B-52s. And then they had what they call EWO launches, where EWO means eminent war. They go out, they get in those B-52s. They don't talk to air traffic control. They go out on the runway and they take off. They go out, they get in those B-52s. They don't talk to air traffic control. They go out on the runway and they take off. They don't care if they've got your permission or anything.
Speaker 1:Because something's got to happen, like right now. Yes, okay, yeah, all right. And so you did that for a while, and so that kind of lines up with is this when you got your orders to go to Vietnam, then yes, all right.
Speaker 2:So in September of 1969, I had my orders. They were actually called re-levied orders, which means that somebody had gotten their wife pregnant, so they weren't going. So guess what? You get to go Nice, which was again wasn't a problem for me. I really had no problem at all going to Vietnam. Probably where it was a little bit strange is that I had my order said that I was supposed to go to a survival school and combat training, excuse me. And they waived all that and just sent me. But that was the attitude of the government at the time. You know, if you get killed they'll just send somebody else's son over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they just needed breathing bodies, right yeah, butts and seats, and what was really?
Speaker 2:strange was when I got my orders, they would either tell me the name of the base or they would tell me the field post office box number, but not both. So they gave me the name and I was going up to a Marine encampment up by the DMZ called Quang Tri, and I don't even know if they had a control tower there. And I kept saying you know I was in the Air Force, don't you? So with not having any real training other than the air traffic control training, it seemed a little strange. But once I got to Da Nang, which was the main squadron, and then you were sent up to Kwong Tri, there were quite a few controllers over there and they closed it down there traffic controllers. So we were sent to other places in the country.
Speaker 1:I'm just curious is Da Nang that's where everybody gathered Was that like the marshalling area for all the people coming in country? It seems like a lot of people went there. Not necessarily the Air Force Communications lot.
Speaker 2:of people went there yeah, not necessarily the Air Force Communications Squadron, which is relatively small in every location I'd ever been at. So that was their main location, which was the 1972nd Comm Squadron, and then from there you would go out to some of the closer bases, and then I was in the 18th, 84th Comm Squadron when I went TDY.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. I want to ask, before I forget were you married at this time? Were you dating someone? What was going on like in your personal life?
Speaker 2:I got a dear John within about two weeks of basic training and I had no plans on getting married while I was in the service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't blame you. So you get to Vietnam, you get to your duty station. Tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Well, originally we sat in the barracks for well. An interesting story is, when we got to the barracks, they had two sections. They had the air traffic control section with the controllers, and then they had people like me who weren't going to stay at Da Nang and we were up in a two-story barracks. And so I was up in the top of the two-story at the end, where the perimeter was, and you could see holes in the wall from the shrapnel, and the locker was mangled. So this is where the new guys get to stay.
Speaker 2:If you survive that you get to move on to someplace else, right? So I think I was there for two, maybe three weeks before I got temporary duty orders to an air base called Tuiwa, which most people would tell you they've never heard of. It was on the South China Sea, I'm going to say maybe a hundred, maybe a little bit more miles north of Cameron Bay, and it was typically an Air Force. F-100 wing squadron was there. That was the primary aircraft.
Speaker 1:So how was it different being air traffic control for the SAC base, where you have a large aircraft and now you're at another? It sounds like a completely different way of doing air traffic control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little faster, obviously, you deal with the small jets versus the lumbering KC-135s and B-52s.
Speaker 2:Probably the most interesting part of it was is we had mountains on one end of the runway so we couldn't bring any traffic straight into that to them, to the runway, which were parallel. There were only two runways. They were parallel, so we had a run, what was called opposite direction traffic. We had arrivals coming in while departures were taking off, so the requirement was for the f-100 that was taking off within a mile of the end of the runway. They had to turn out and sometimes they got pretty darn close to each other because they were in the clouds.
Speaker 2:I never had one say he saw one, but we had what was called precision approach radar where you could see their azimuth and elevation as one was going out and one was coming in. And in Vietnam air traffic control, they had what was called tactical, which meant that the pilots could follow your instructions or they didn't have to. So if they were on an outbound for a bomb run and you had to hold them down for other traffic and they didn't want to, they just did what they wanted to do. It wasn't positive control like it is here in this country.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's got to make your job a little difficult sometimes.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it tends to make you a little nervous, hopefully. And then there were always a lot of emergencies, Another problem we had. I worked in a radar unit. I was a radar approach controller versus a control tower controller.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So our radar unit was between the two runways and what would happen when an F-100 came in with hung ordnance? They would come in and they would do a touch and go to see if the ordnance was going to fall off the airplane or not, before they came in and actually did a landing. So what would happen is when they were doing that, the tower had a buzzer what we call it a bailout alarm where we're supposed to bail out of the radar unit. But you didn't know which way to go. There were four ways to go and you were just hoping you were running the wrong way. The right way, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:You had a 75% chance of going to the correct way we never had one actually drop napalm or anything on the wrong way, but it's never a comforting feeling knowing that that could happen, right, right. And then we were also very close to the perimeter. So prior to me getting to Tuiwa they had a sapper team that came in and blew some F-100s up in the revetments and all that. So we had F-16s in the unit and our responsibility would have been if there were a breach of the perimeter, then we were to guard the radar unit.
Speaker 1:Okay, it sounds like a lot of stuff going on while you're there. I wanted to ask you too so this is kind of backing up just a little bit but you were in Texas and you were in Biloxi, and I've been in Biloxi in the summertime and it's not even half as much fun as Texas, right? So when you got to Vietnam, were you pretty well acclimated for that here, or was it just a whole different thing when you got there?
Speaker 2:I don't remember real issues with it. One of the things was the radar unit, which is almost like a mobile trailer, had air conditioning, so at least eight hours a day you were sitting in air conditioning because the equipment needed it. That wasn't the case once you left the job. But my recall was it was more of the monsoons where, when it just rained and rained and rained, you could have your poncho on and it didn't make any difference. That water came off the poncho, hit your, your pants and then soaked all the way up, so it was like you didn't have a poncho on at all. Yeah, when, when, uh, you took the poncho off, you were just soaked to the brim yeah, and that lasted for quite a while too, right yeah, I'm pretty sure monsoons last around six months yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you're just wet, and miserable for six months.
Speaker 2:Right, and then we had the lizards and all kinds of stuff. We were kind of a very sandy area and so it was interesting. When I was a kid in Kansas I'd go to YMCA school and we'd get horned, toads and lizards and all that stuff, and so it didn't bother me any. Some people didn't particularly care to have lizards in their hooves.
Speaker 1:Right, they were just sharing space with you, right, right. How long were you in Vietnam then? One year, just a one-year tour, yeah, okay. The other question I had for you is did you find that your mechanical abilities were helpful when you you got there? I mean, I know that your air traffic control, but my experience in the military has always been like people have these other skills and they really come in handy if something breaks or something happens. Did you find that at all?
Speaker 2:no, not really, because we had maintenance technicians to handle all that kind of stuff. I mean, we did have all kinds of knobs and all this kind of good stuff. We plotted the artillery so that we made sure we weren't bringing the aircraft in and knowing artillery places and stuff like that. But as far as any maintenance, we had maintenance technicians for that.
Speaker 1:So you absolutely got what you wanted. Then you were nowhere near turning wrenches Right. Do you feel like the education you got in air traffic control although I mean it's rudimentary compared to today? Do you think that helped you gain computer skills, that kind of thing?
Speaker 2:I do, just simply. I mean, we haven't gotten there yet, but I went into the FAA where it became very much more computerized, where, when an aircraft would call you, you would punch in the number and all that, give them a squawk code and it would instantly tag that target, indicating that that was the aircraft, which is a whole other story. Yeah, but we were still having to turn aircraft for identification. So if an aircraft came in, said I'm 20 miles northeast of the airport, the first thing you'd do is look for a raw radar target. If you saw one, you'd ask them it's heading? And then you would turn them 30 degrees and see if that target made that move to get positive identification, because you never wanted to misidentify an aircraft, right?
Speaker 1:right? Yeah, that would be so when you're looking at them on radar. So there's no identification number or anything on that.
Speaker 2:Not at that time On that blip.
Speaker 1:So you just got to know that that blip belongs to that one and that blip belongs to that one. Yeah, wow, that's challenging, yeah. So when you think back to your time in Vietnam, is there anything that really sticks out? Is there anything else you kind of want to talk about your time in country?
Speaker 2:No, the only thing I can remember is that I had considered going for another year there and my problem was that I was going to have about four months left in my enlistment and I didn't have any control tower experience and I wanted to get some in my enlistment. And I didn't have any control tower experience and I wanted to get some. So I was afraid that they would let me have an early out and I didn't want that. So that's why I didn't extend, and so when I eventually Selfridge was the next base I got to here in Michigan, I was able to get about six months of control tower experience.
Speaker 1:All right, well, let's talk about your return, then, from Vietnam. Did you take some time off and go home for a while, or what I mean? What did you do when you left?
Speaker 2:country. Yeah, I did. I actually got home maybe three or four days before Anybody in my family knew it and I didn't tell them. I thought I would surprise them. Well, when I left New York, the doors used to be wide open. Nobody locked it or anything like that. So I get to the house and nobody's there. My mom's teaching and all the siblings are either gone or in school or whatever. My dad's in New York City working and I tried to get in the house and I couldn't get in the house Because they were now locking everything up. So I forget how, but somehow my mom got word and rushed home. But the other thing I remember was that they had a microwave and I had no idea what a microwave was, and so I'm looking around and they had some crab cakes in the freezer. So I took a crab cake out and I put it on for five minutes in the microwave and when it came out you could have taken it out and put it in the rock garden.
Speaker 2:There's some nuance to cooking with a microwave right, yeah, yeah, five minutes with a crab cake is not.
Speaker 1:No, not a frozen crab cake. Good thing it wasn't wrapped in foil. You'd have gotten a whole different experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so things changed a lot in the time that you were gone.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and my mom was. You know. I wasn't a big writer, you know, and so occasionally I would get care packages and my mom would have liked if I'd have written a little more, but she was a warrior to start with. You know what was I going to write about? Well, we were on DEFCON 5 today and we're expecting an attack tonight. That wasn't going to calm her nerves at all, no, no, and again, I wasn't a big writer to start with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I told my family was. I'm not going to tell you how bad it is here as long as you don't tell me how bad it is back home. Yeah, and that kind of kept them away.
Speaker 2:Well, unfortunately, with Vietnam. We knew how bad it was back home. Yeah, the protests and the Air Force times. We were able to get that over there. So we were well aware of what was going on in this country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was kind of a mess, to put it lightly Right, so you're back home for a little while and then you end up at Selfridge. So tell me about kind of that.
Speaker 2:Well, the transition was it's Vietnam returnees get choice of base. Being an East Coaster, I picked six bases up and down the East Coast and my seventh choice was no preference. And I learned a lesson from that Never leave anything blank and don't say no preference because they sent me to Selfridge, which wasn't anywhere close to the East Coast no, no, not even, yeah, not even close.
Speaker 2:So and, to be honest with you, it was. It was the worst assignment. I had believe it or not even I mean considering. I just come back from Vietnam because we were the only regular Air Force on the base, so where you had to guard the reserve and all that they were closing. And just come back from Vietnam because we were the only regular Air Force on the base, so we had to guard the reserve and all that. They were closing down the auto shop. They were closing down the gym.
Speaker 2:There wasn't a whole lot to do except to go off base to the bars and drink, and it just was not a great assignment.
Speaker 1:Well, everybody knows where Selfridge is. There's not a lot around there anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were able to find the local bars without a problem.
Speaker 1:Well, everybody knows where Sulfurage is. There's not a lot around there anyway. Yeah, we were able to find the local bars without a problem. Oh, absolutely. I can't imagine that you wouldn't. So what year?
Speaker 2:was this that you got there September of 1970. Okay, and then I got out in May of 72.
Speaker 1:All right, what was duty like at Sulfurage then?
Speaker 2:Well, it was good Again because I was a radar approach controller initially. I worked radar approach control, except for six months to get that tower experience and it wasn't overly busy. We had all five services there, so we had a Coast Guard helicopter that was out on missions. We had a lot of training, a lot of Navy S3s, marine Corps, so there was a mixture of aircraft and where it got very interesting was that there was very limited airspace south because of Detroit Metro and because of that it was hard when you started getting the jet aircraft in to keep them within that airspace. So you mix an S-3, which is a prop, with a jet and it doesn't work out well.
Speaker 1:No, no, I got to think every day was different.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you think that was good, though, that you got that mix?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I did get a chance to learn the area and, as we get further into this, I was at Detroit Metro at one point in time, so I had a lot of familiarity with the area when I finally got to Detroit Metro.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you finish out your time at Sulfridge, it's time to your enlistment's up and it's time to to move on. What happens?
Speaker 2:your enlistment's up and it's time to move on. What happens? Well, I met my future wife while I was at Selfridge In June. I got out in May. In June we got married. We went back to New York and we got married in my parents' house and she had a son from a previous marriage. So I was unemployed and now had a family. Yeah, instantly yeah.
Speaker 2:So I ended up working for a company in Mount Clemens which did urethane work and stuff like that, and within a year I'd worked my way up to supervisor. It wasn't the greatest paying job, but it was better than no paying job at all. Right, it put food on the table. It wasn't the greatest paying job, but it was better than no paying job at all. Right, it put food on the table and I took the FAA test and I believe it was because of a vet non-veteran. You get five extra points along with whatever your test score was, and I had 105 points.
Speaker 2:So I was pretty sure that I was going to get into the FAA. It was just a matter of when, because they had a freeze on Right. But I do remember that it took me about a year to finally get hired by the FAA and I just got pretty upset. I'd watched TV and the government was putting out don't forget, hire a vet. And I felt like doing a dropkick on the TV because our own government's sitting there saying, hire the veterans, but oh, we're not going to hire you because we've got a freeze on Right.
Speaker 1:And so it was a time where, you know, you felt like you served your country and now you were, your own government wasn't helping you get into the career field that you wanted to get into, right it was. That was a rough time, anyway, economically, like we were kind of rolling into that recession and you know that was something. Yeah, yes, and all that stuff was on the horizon, right, yeah I believe I hired in May of 73 okay, all right, and where do you work?
Speaker 1:so how does that work? You hire the FAA. I'm sure they'll just throw you in a control tower, right they?
Speaker 2:well, actually they do.
Speaker 1:I had to go, even though.
Speaker 2:I had four years of experience as a controller. They still send you down to Oklahoma City, which is where their Academy is at. Uh-huh, and my recollection was it was like a four-week course. You take the weather courses, which is never. There's nothing wrong with refreshers on some of these courses. So my first, I was hired in the Detroit City Airport and that was quite an eye-opener. I probably, to be honest with you, worked harder at Detroit City than I did at any other facility. We used to call it shaking the Cessna tree. On a Saturday morning, every Cessna on the airport would come out. They all wanted to be in the pattern and I can remember as a controller when you were working local control, which is controlling an aircraft in the air, is that you keyed the mic and hardly ever unkeyed it. Wow, turn your base, cleared the land, this and that, such and such follow this guy, and it was an eye-opener.
Speaker 1:Did you like on a busy day like that, did you find like when you went home it was hard to turn that off, like I would? I would still like I used to be a dispatcher and I would still hear like dispatching things while I was trying to sleep well, it wasn't only there, it was pretty much my whole time in the FAA and I spent eight years in the FAA.
Speaker 2:If you had a day that was a bad day, you'd go home and you'd hash it through your mind. If something didn't go quite right, you'd do the whole thing all over again, just like you were there, right, and there were many times where you really didn't get any sleep. Doing that no and yeah, it was at times could be a problem, especially when you had to go back in and work the next day and you weren't getting the sleep you hoped to be getting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could see where that might wear on you after a while, yeah, so how long were you at Detroit City Airport?
Speaker 2:I. I could see where that might wear on you after a while. So how long were you at Detroit City Airport? I was at City until 1975. And at that point the game in the FAA if you want to call it a game was that you go through various stages of different airports. So Akron-Canton was a level two radar approach control. So I went to Akron Canton, I was there until 79, moved on to Columbus in Columbus, ohio, port Columbus, and was there for about a year and then from there I bid on Detroit Metro and was at Detroit Metro.
Speaker 1:Okay, did you like Detroit Metro Was that.
Speaker 2:Well, my wife liked it. She was from this area. I guess that's hopeful. Yeah, and I can remember when I first told her we were going down to Akron Canton she said well, I don't want to go down there. They've got an accent. They don't have any more accents than we do.
Speaker 1:It's such a big country. That's funny, though, because people have accents everywhere you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then when I told my wife when I was at Columbus that I was going to bid on Metro, she said let's go. However, she did tell me when we got to Metro that the next time you want to move, you're moving by yourself. Oh yeah, well, I moved the family four times and it's hard on the kids. Well, it's almost like being in the military really, yeah right.
Speaker 2:And so in an eight-year period we went from Detroit City to Akron, canton, to Columbus, to Detroit Metro and you know, you know. So you've got kids that are in school and they made friends and fortunately my youngest son made friends very easily so he wasn't greatly affected by it. And then by the time we got to Detroit Metro was when my younger kids were starting to get into school.
Speaker 1:And how many kids did you have? Three, okay, all right and pretty evenly spaced out.
Speaker 2:No, my oldest was born in 66. Again, I adopted him. Oh, that's right. And then my two other children were two years apart, 73 and 75.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, all right. So they didn't hang out with their older sibling. Then too much, not so much, yeah, just each other, right, okay, all right. So you do that for eight years then, and now you can't go anyplace else. So what'd you do?
Speaker 2:Well, the next plan would have been to get into supervision, maybe start it back in a tower-like city and then moved to another place and, you know, eventually get to a place like Detroit Metro again as a supervisor. It's pretty rare to go from a controller to a supervisor, but it has happened. So you know it's a constant move. The family game and my wife just had more than enough of that. So, as it turned out, it ended up not being a problem because in 1981, when we went on strike, ronald Reagan who had well, he was a candidate said that he was going to reduce our hours to more commensurate with a job from 40. The Canadian controls were working 32 and never worked traffic like we did. And what we didn't realize is that he meant from 40 to zero, because he fired everybody, didn't he? Yeah, about 14,000. And I believe today there's still an effect.
Speaker 2:So if you think about it, in 1981, they had to replace us all, so you had a big influx of new controllers. So the retirement is 20 years at age 55, 25 years at any age. So roughly 25 years later, it's like having a strike, except it's not a strike. Now they're all retiring. So today there are 3000 controllers short and it's a very small percentage of people that come out of school, go to a facility and actually end up being an air traffic controller. So if you were to put 100 controllers through school, maybe 20 of them would end up being fully performance-level controllers. When it was all over said and done, we'd have guys that would come from Lansing or Flint to Metro and just couldn't cut it and would end up going back. Very high-stress environment, right? No, not, according to the FAA. The FAA said it was no more stressful being an air traffic controller than driving down the highway and our civilian equivalent was a veterinarian assistant. Wow, people wonder why we went on strike.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, what was that like for you? You had this job and then, all of a sudden, you just don't like it. You're done.
Speaker 2:Well, it's kind of interesting. First of all, I was vice president of the union down there and eventually the president before we were decertified and none of us would have ever thought that they would fire 14,000 out of 15,000 air traffic controllers Right, I mean, who would have thought that for a second? And Reagan got some bad advice. He pretty much was told that you know, if you give them this 48-hour ultimatum, most of them will run back and the hardliners will stay out. You'll get rid of the hardliners and we'll be in great shape. And that didn't happen, yeah. And we got really beat up on a contract At that time. We were asking for a $10,000 raise. And I would go to UAW meetings and UAW members say you guys have got a lot of nerve asking for $10,000. And I would say to them wait a minute. If you're expecting to get $2,000, you don't start at 2,000. You start at 10 and you negotiate. We wanted to have an Olympic-sized swimming pool on every control tower, but we were willing to give that up.
Speaker 1:We'll take a water fountain instead, right?
Speaker 2:So you know we got. You know, I mean, we had no support from the unions. The Teamsters crossed our picket lines and the UAW was good, they gave us a haul to meet at constantly, but the pilots didn't support us. You know the mechanics, you know the various other unions. Just simply, we got no support. And a lot of people today will say that the beginning of the downfall of the unions was when they when what happened to the air traffic controllers, when these companies started seeing what reagan did and it's the same with the detroit news, where they fired all of their people you know that they, these companies, started deciding that that's what they were going to do. They were, they were taking reagan's example and they were going to utilize it. And the unions have never had the strength that they had prior to the Patco strike.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my dad was a union guy. He worked for General Motors from like 65 to, I think, 1990. But yeah, you can see it. There was like an arc where it was very powerful and then it just wasn't Right. Yeah, so what did you do after this?
Speaker 2:Well, I got into real estate, which I hated. The guy gave me the broker, gave me a cubicle and a telephone. I worked seven days a week. He was giving me half the commission. So I made $40,000 a year and gave him $40,000 for a cubicle and a telephone and that wasn't my thing, but it was. Again, you got to put food on the table. So that's what you do In the process of doing real estate.
Speaker 2:I found that when I had a transaction that it was important to try and get the people that were buying if I had the buyers the best interest rate that they could get, which meant a better chance of them qualifying, which meant a better chance of it closing, which meant a better chance that I was going to make a commission on it. But you sat on the phone constantly having to call all the banks and all that. So I actually started a company that gathered interest rates from the various mortgage companies and I published it and sold it to real estate offices and I did that for 32 years and it went from where I just just the various real estate's office got my report to the newspapers, picked it up, so all the newspapers would publish it on a weekly basis and it grew from there. I was reporting on 90 lenders and had probably a 10 10 more that were waiting to get in because the papers didn't have the room to add any more than that that's incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a great story. Like I hate this job, but that this, there's this part over here I think I can do and the part I missed was I also got into CAD CAM Computer Aided Manufacturing, computer Aided Design so I did that.
Speaker 2:And then I did my mortgage thing on the side because I only had to do that one day a week, right. So I built that business while I was actually doing CAD CAM week, right? So I built that business while I was was actually doing, uh, cad can. So I started out I think it's six dollars and 25 cents an hour, which was not a lot of money and um went to another company. They gave me a quarter raise after a year and, uh, so I went to another place and got a four dollar raise, ended up being a supervisor, and then that company started a software company to develop a computer PC-based CAD CAM product and I was the technical support manager for that company until I left.
Speaker 1:Really, yeah, so that's interesting because I used CAD. I worked in the utility industry for 28 years, so I probably used some of the products that you developed Computer Vision.
Speaker 2:SimLink, yeah, two that I worked on. Besides we had one called Solution 3000, which was a PC-based one. So I was key in the development of that because I had all the knowledge and background for what these high-end systems could do that we were trying to develop into this PC based system. So I left the company. They had promised me a percentage of the company and it was a husband and wife, a family business.
Speaker 2:The wife hated computers. She had said to me more than often I don't know why anybody would like computers. So I would go out to customer sites to do technical support and I might have the part to keep their CAD CAM system running. And these companies are making money when their CAD systems are running. They're not making money when they're not. And so I would have possibly, for example, a math processor or I knew what the problem was and I'd go out there to change it. And she would tell me that I had to come all the way back to Novi from Sterling Heights to get an invoice for a $300 part. And I said I'll handwrite an invoice. So they felt that that was disrespectful.
Speaker 2:So pretty soon I was on the out Wow. So I started a computer sales and service, utilizing all of their customers. I didn't take their customer database. I knew who they were because I was out there all the time, right, because they were threatening to sue me for taking their customer database and I finally said to them either sue me or get off my back. Yeah, because I didn't take any written customer database. I visit every one of them and these are people who knew and trusted you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I ended up doing computer sales and service. Where the problem eventually came in was at the time, you know, they depended on me. And then companies like CompUSA came in and I couldn't compete Right, because where they're selling 100 computers, I'm selling one or two a month and I would write post processors. If they had a computer go out or a monitor go out, I would bring another one out, I would keep them running. So I said to them either you consider my services value added or you don't, because CompUSA is not going to write you a post processor and they're going to take your computer and who knows when you're going to get it back. And eventually, in 1995, I finally shut that down because I just, you know, the people were more interested in saving a few bucks than they were with the service.
Speaker 2:Right Sort of what's going on with like online ordering versus going to a brick-and-mortar store, but by the time that happened, my mortgage reporting service was going extremely well, so I was working one day a week out of my house and making really good money. I had a whole lot of people say to me I wish, I wish I knew what your formula was well, what?
Speaker 1:what is it about you? Because you seem to have like a knack for like seeing this need, and then I mean, because I mean I don't see the connection between cad cam and mortgage interest rates and air traffic control, like you just have all these different things that you've done just out of seeing a need and then figuring out how to fill it, and that's precisely it seeing a need.
Speaker 2:I was their head technical support guy. When I left I knew they were going to be in trouble and I mean I would go out and I would solve problems that their people couldn't solve. So it was kind of a love-hate relationship. You know. They loved it when I was out there solving their problem, right. So and that was, you know, I mean I had a relationship with some of the software people and stuff like that and I had one guy that was talking about leaving because of what they'd done to me and I said, no, don't do that. And as a matter of fact, they finally said to him that if we find out you're hanging around with Steve, we're gonna let you go.
Speaker 1:so I mean that's how vindictive they were yeah, well, people get protective or they get paranoid, or I don't know what the word is, but yes, let's back up for a second and talk about the strike Something that
Speaker 2:a lot of people don't know about is that the Reagan administration was dead set on making sure that we never made a living again, if at all possible. We had guys that tried to get into the Canadian air traffic control system and our government put pressure on the Canadians not to hire any of us. We had guys that went into owner operator trucking and they were the companies were threatened with pulling all of their government contracts if they hired any of their controllers. They just they did any and everything that they possibly could. We were dragged into court. I had, on the next day of the strike, I had federal agents around my house trying to find me. I was down at the Union Hall, right, but we had. We had people that were taken away and changed in shackles presidents of locals so the government was not happy with us.
Speaker 1:I had never heard that they basically was scorched earth with you guys.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, wow, they were very vindictive. I worked with, they developed a team and one of the guys was the president of Coleman Industries out of Kansas, another was a University of Michigan professor and there was one other, gm vice president, and they were charged by the government to go around and visit all the towers, talk to the controllers who stayed in and make recommendations to the FAA. So I contacted this professor out of the University of Michigan and I said who are you going to be speaking to? And he said well, the controllers that are still in there. I said you're never, never going to get a true picture if you don't talk to the controllers that are on the outside. That went on strike. So he went to the FAA and he said to them can I talk to these controllers? And they said yes, and I set him up throughout the country to go to union meetings and sit down and talk with the controllers.
Speaker 2:And we actually he, I and another controller wrote a book that was never published and the reason was is that we, it was fiction based on fact. So what we would do is we would take sections of this report they made to show that what we were saying was what was actually happening and no publisher would take it. You either either it's fiction or it's fact that we won't take the two combined.
Speaker 1:Right right Now you have historical fiction that people write all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that might be worth self-publishing. Well, nobody's anymore, it's probably. The funny thing is the title was the Mid-Air Collision of the FAA and PATCO was the title of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably no one would even know right anymore.
Speaker 2:No, but it was pretty bad. They were pressing real hard to make sure that you couldn't feed your family or get a job or anything that was related to air traffic control.
Speaker 1:So that's really kind of what pushed you into real estate. Then, yeah, what else are you going to do?
Speaker 2:Well, I was. Eventually Bill Clinton lifted the ban. What happened was the federal government when you're released like that, you can go to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which we did, and all of us lost. So then we filed with the circuit court and they held it for five years until Reagan appointed all justices for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and we had attorneys and we never got our day in court. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals took five cases, decided against them and then said yours is kind of like his, yours is kind of like his. You lose, you lose, you lose, wow. So this justice for all and you get your day in court isn't necessarily how it really goes.
Speaker 1:Right, right, you know what. Something interesting, though, I've got to say is that you're passionate about it, but you don't seem bitter about it.
Speaker 2:No, and I'll tell you exactly why because you and I wouldn't be talking today if I had stayed in that job with the stress, yeah, yeah. So the simple fact is is that in the long run, reagan did me a favor because I wouldn't be here today and I'm at least as successful, if not more so so, than if I just stayed in the faa. I could have retired when I was 49 years old because I would have had the 25 years that I needed, yeah. So, yeah, I had to work longer, but I'm not afraid of work. I know I've clearly started these companies and stuff like that. And here I am. I'm now going in my seventh year as a commander of a vfw and senior vice commander of the American Legion. So my thing is not to sit at home. I do my own break jobs, my own oil changes, and my philosophy is why would I pay somebody to do something that I'm capable of doing myself?
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. So I don't want to get ahead of ourselves then. So you, I had a question, hold on a second. It was a good one too, doggone it, yeah.
Speaker 2:So the question is like, overall, philosophically speaking, do you think like all these things happened for a reason then? Eh, I don't know, I'm just curious. I mean, like I said, I was very conscientious. All my ratings in the FAA were excellent. I had what was called QWIs, which were quality within grade. So, for example, when I was a GS-12 and I went to a GS-13, I went to a 14 because I got a quality within grade. So my work was superior in most people's opinion and I just knew that I can handle the hardships. It's the same thing you get out of the military and you're not getting hired by the FAA. You got to do something. So I mean, I was offered a percentage of the urethane company to stay with them, but there was no way in the world that was ever going to happen yeah, you sound.
Speaker 1:You sound like you know what you don't want. Right, right, absolutely. So you uh. I'm just fascinated by all these things that you've done, but I want to talk about, uh, when did you become involved in these veteran service organizations the vfw and the american legion?
Speaker 2:well, I joined a group downtown Brighton called the Brighton Veterans Memorial Committee and they have a memorial down there and I was just a volunteer. I helped them put pavers in and things that needed to be done at the memorial and eventually got on the committee and then eventually became chairman of the committee, which I am today. And we were having difficulty when we had the parade downtown. The communications between the committee and the parade organizers, which were the VFW and the American Legion, weren't communicating. So the American Legion and the VFW would set up the parade but they didn't do anything after. So what we would do is we would do stuff after at the memorial. We would have speakers and all that kind of stuff. So I joined solely to be the liaison between the Brighton Veterans Memorial Committee and the VFW and the American Legion. So that's how it started. And within a year I was senior vice commander of the American Legion and a year later I was commander of the VFW and I have a lot of knowledge, especially in computers.
Speaker 2:I do all of the POS, front end, back end, I'm sorry. Plus I can do the front end here I do most of all of the computer work. You can do the front end here. I do most of the all of the computer work. I just I do accounting. I do the accounting for the four different organizations because I did my own accounting when I was. I had my mortgage reporting service and my computer company. So I have all of these different backgrounds that people need. I can remember I was sitting in here and somebody was complaining about this electronic sign out front that nobody knew how to do it and I said, well, I've got a computer background, I could look at it. And I know Sooner said that and they had the control sitting on the table saying here you go, make it work, yeah, which I did and still do, yeah, yeah. So I just, you know, I've got a lot of knowledge in a lot of different areas which seem to be useful to both the organizations here and it served me well with my own organizations.
Speaker 1:Well, and it sounds too like even in your private businesses, they're really service organizations as well. I mean providing that information on mortgage interest rates, that's a service, right? I mean you get paid for it, that's great, but that's a service. Helping people out with their computers, that's a service.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, I considered myself a statistician for the mortgage rates. I used to deal with a gentleman named Murray Feldman who did a Sunday show here on Channel Two, and I would go in and do interviews with him and at some point in his opinion to become a mortgage expert. People would say, well, why would you take an arm versus a 15 year? Why would you take a 15 versus 30 and all that? And I would go on his show and do that. So, like I say, I just when I get into something, I'm usually pretty thorough.
Speaker 2:You want to know all about it, right, yeah, yeah, that makes sense I can remember when I was a kid I got my first bike and my parents I remember my parents went on vacation to Colorado and then we were in Kansas and I took a hammer and a nail and I made a flat tire on my bike because my dad had shown me how to fix a flat tire so I had to try it myself and I would take lawnmower engines and tear them apart. In those days too, I would go down to a hardware store locally where they rebuilt and did that kind of stuff. And I was very lucky because the guy who did that was more than happy to have me in there and be my mentor and show me what he was doing. And I think that's what helps kids grow is people who can take their knowledge and pass it on to kids and get them interested in something, if they show an interest in what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Right, sometimes it's a matter of just listening to the kid, right? Yeah, it's funny that you say all that because when I was, when I was a kid, my my mom used to. She would go to yard sales and she would buy me like blenders and toasters and things so I could take them apart and see how they worked and then put them back together. So very, very similar.
Speaker 2:I didn't go quite as far entrepreneurially as you have, but yeah, Well, I've got like a ZTR and it's got two drives on it and I was having a problem with one. So I bought this kit. I said, well, you know, first of all, they weren't going to be able to give it back to me for a month and I couldn't go without it for a month, right? So it ended up being a blown head gasket on it. So I put a gasket on it and the thing worked fine for years thereafter. So I'm just not afraid to jump in and see what I can do. There's a couple of things I won't do. I don't do gas appliances, I won't put my own water heater in because I don't want to blow the house up, and I do lemon electric. I'm not crazy on it, but I guess I know what my limits are and when it's time to call a professional in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, that's part of life, right Figuring out what your limits are.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you have to go beyond them to figure out what they are, but we all get there. Well, we've talked about a lot of things and covered a lot. I mean to me this is just fascinating, to be honest. I've talked to a lot of things and covered a lot. I mean to me this is just fascinating, to be honest. I've talked to a lot of people. I talked to a guy who got out of the military and invented the machine that wraps bowling pins in that plastic that they're wrapped in.
Speaker 2:you know um, but this I think it's interesting that military people um tend to uh have kind of that spirit of if there's a problem, we'll figure out how to fix it well, and one thing that and you know it as well as I do that military teaches a discipline and the example I always use as my wife's up at my summer home um, for six. So who cares if I make the bed? Nobody comes in the house. I make the bed religiously every morning and it's discipline, right yeah, so it's. In other words, you know, you do what you have to do and you do it.
Speaker 1:Well, and if you make your bed every morning, you've started your day doing something. Yes, you've accomplished something already, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But doing something. Yes, you've accomplished something already.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, absolutely, but I'm a firm believer in that every kid should be in the military and learn discipline. It would serve them well. Yeah, yeah, I think we would be a lot further ahead, maybe. Right, so you know, as we kind of wrap up our conversation, I want to make sure we've covered everything that you want to talk about. So is there anything we haven't talked about that you wanted to cover before we?
Speaker 2:No other than I'm very involved in all the organizations.
Speaker 2:here Again, I'm commander of the VFW going on my seventh year I've just relinquished. The reality is I'm not getting any younger. So I'm trying to push off some of these jobs onto somebody else because if something were to happen to me and I'm doing all of these different functions it could become a problem. So the hardest thing I'm having is finding somebody that's very computer literate where I can train them on the back end of the POS system and that kind of stuff. But I kind of joke sometimes when those people here they'll say to me you know, somebody will say well, this is the commander. And I'll say and the head janitor also. So I pretty much I hire the bartenders, I I go up on the roof and put the filters in, I set up the hall for functions when they need help, and so I pretty much do whatever is called for here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do what's got to be done. Yeah, Well, good, so you know. I just have one more question for you then, as we wind down, and that is you know someone listening to this, maybe 100 years from now, what message would you want to leave for people as we end our conversation today?
Speaker 2:I guess it would be. You know, if you feel that you're good at something, you should pursue it, and if it means starting your own business, the advice I would give, though, is that when you first start a business, it takes time for it to grow. If you have a partner who can help pay the bills and the prime example would be my son he started a little restaurant, and he felt pressured to. His wife was an engineer, she was making good money, but he felt pressure to start taking money out of the business when he probably shouldn't have. He should have left it in there to build it, and the business failed. And so if you're going to go out on your own, you've got to have a plan, and you've got to stick to it, and if your plan is that, within six months of starting your business, you expect to be paying your mortgage and your bills, then you probably shouldn't do it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:All right. Well then, you probably shouldn't do it. Absolutely All right. Well, thank you for sharing that. Thanks for being the first out of this VFW post to record your story. I really appreciate it, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate what you're doing here and I think that it's a great service for veterans.
