Ah, I did not get that from your first post. Guess I’d say whatever you do, do what makes you happy and do it just a little bit better than everyone else. As an example, 211° water is really hot but it’s still just water. Now at 212° something happens and that water boils and turns to steam. Just 1° makes all the difference in the world, be that 1°.
My personal journey started in 1986 fresh out of high school where I went to work making deliveries for an electrical wholesaler. Unlike every other driver there, I opened up the boxes I delivered to see and learn just what I was delivering. When at the customer’s I’d ask them for a quick tour to learn how what we sold was being used in their facility. Within nine months I was working counter sales and six months after that I was offered an inside position by one of the factory reps from whom we purchased. Went to work for them, again asking lots of questions and going to all the local trainings they’d put on at other customers and going to as many factory trainings both in and out of state as they’d pay for. After two years of being an inside salesman they gave me a territory to manage and I never turned back, I was 22 or 23 at the time. If it goes on a machine or is used in any part of a facility and has an electron flowing through it I’ve applied and sold it to meet my customers needs, customers like Frito-Lay, Behr Paint, the NHRA, Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing, Quaker Oats and JPL. I have parts on robotic cells at Tesla, CH47s, from the Space Shuttle to concrete pumps that laid the pad. I’ve worked with Chicken plants, slaughter houses, micro-breweries and sold the drives controlling the roof at the Mariner’s Stadium in Seattle and ski lifts in Whistler. You’d be hard pressed to find an application with which I haven’t at least some familiarity. I say all this only to give you a feel of what my career path was like. My last 11 years was spent with an electrical distributor (went full circle I suppose) personally managing a territory that generated $3.6 million in sales and providing technical support for the 7 other salespeople that worked for the company. I’m now 55 years old, debt free and have been retired for 4 years enjoying the life the Good Lord has given me here in Paradise Valley, Oklahoma.
