The Steel Guitar Forum

Very Interesting. Okay here is my laundry list of jobs/careers:

12 Years (Off and On) Ranch Hand/Foreman
Taking care of cattle, horses and 5000 acres of land and all that goes with ranching/farm work. Colder than heck in the winter hotter than heck in the summer.

7 Years United States Marine Corps
H.A.W.K. Missile Systems Operator, Ops/training clerk, Marine Drill Instructor (Parris Island, S.C.), Hand to Hand Combat Instructor (Parris Island, S.C.),
Platoon Sergeant Yuma, Arizona and Battalion Training Chief Yuma Arizona.

7 Years Fort Worth Police Department
Patrol Officer, Undercover Vice, Crime Saturation Officer, Background Investigator.

1 Year Ellis County Sheriffs Department
Patrol Officer

4 Years in Partnership Buying/Selling/Training Horses
selling horses to Police Departments for their mounted patrol units. (it got to where the horses were eating better than we were).

Currently 5 years in the Counseling Field
Assisting those with Substance Abuse Issues get into treatment, other counseling services.

Criminal Defense Lawyer....it's been great for business getting to tell the crowd at 3 am that I handle Drunk Driving Cases as well!

Started out as an Army Warrant Officer Helicopter Pilot flying in Viet Nam.
Then a fireman while riding bareback rodeo horses, 12 years as a deputy sheriff, 7 years as a deputy district attorney (providing Bob Simons with clients), then 11 years as a Supervising Attorney for the State of California. Retired at age 55, moved to Arizona away from the rat-race. Now one week a month I'm an Adminstrative Law Judge for Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Work in the trucking industry---dispatcher for
brokeage firm----in full time music for 10 years
in the 80's

Since 1965 I have worked as a Criminal Investigator either in Law Enforcement or Private Industry. Started in the Dallas area and retired in Austin and San Antionio. Worked in weekend bands while growing up in Dallas. In 1975 while a member of the Musicians Union in Dallas I was called for an audition with Charlie Pride. I think it was right after Gene Oneal had left him. At the time I was in Law Enforcement at the DFW Airport and since I was not offered the position with Pride I did not have to make that all important decission about going full-time into music. Really, I had the best of two Worlds cause I had a good day job and was able to work weekends playing in bands. Back then we made very good money playing on weekends. I have no regrets.

Credit Cards

Had 40 years in the motor industry, i currently work for the government repairing army trucks Play the steel as much as time allows.Love to watch and hear all you good folk out there that play full time and show the rest of us how it should be done.Regards to all Keith White uk.

Many intersting careers! Lets take it to the top,,,again

I've been in the computer industry for 44 years in design, development and manufacturing. I started in design and did long stints in Engineering management and Manufacturing management. It has become frustrating enough that I announced my retirement effective 1/30/09.

I worked in law enforcement for 20 years. For 10 years of that, I was an auto theft detective. I developed a medical disability (not job related) and retired from law enforcement. I've been an insurance fraud investigator in the property/casualty insurance business for the past 17 years, and counting.

Larry Strawn wrote:I've been a welder and fabricator for 40 years.

I've been a prefabricator all my life...

Criminal Defense Lawyer, physician, professor, fly rockets, teach Computer Science, flight instructor, research biologist....

I was going to brag about my long happy career putting holes in the end of toothbrushes, but I changed my mind.

Cabinet maker/carpenter for 35 yrs.
On site carpenter these days for a big local paper mill in there maintinence dept.

I am a Mud Engineer and a part - time professional golfer.

I was a Recycling Manager for a large waste disposal company down in Southern Calif.
That was nine years ago.
Now I get paid for playing guitar... I'm a pastor of music for a church here in Vancouver, WA USA.

Been playing music for the public, since I was 16 yrs. old. I'm 59 now and my musical career was interrupted by 2 yrs of college, 2 yrs of Army service ( 75th Rangers' ) and 36 yrs of woodworking. 9 yrs. as a constuction carpenter and 27 yrs as a restoration carpenter for an estate, which includes a 75 room mansion built in 1906, numerous barns circa. 1850 and many "Gold Coast" era buildings. Except for my service hitch, I've really played music through all of these distractions. It's been an interesting career, so far. Many, many, ups and downs, but, rewarding, mentally. Actually, playing the steel guitar has been my passion for a long, long time, just couldn't make a living with it.

Mark Edwards wrote:Very Interesting. Okay here is my laundry list of jobs/careers:

12 Years (Off and On) Ranch Hand/Foreman
Taking care of cattle, horses and 5000 acres of land and all that goes with ranching/farm work. Colder than heck in the winter hotter than heck in the summer.

7 Years United States Marine Corps
H.A.W.K. Missile Systems Operator, Ops/training clerk, Marine Drill Instructor (Parris Island, S.C.), Hand to Hand Combat Instructor (Parris Island, S.C.),
Platoon Sergeant Yuma, Arizona and Battalion Training Chief Yuma Arizona.

7 Years Fort Worth Police Department
Patrol Officer, Undercover Vice, Crime Saturation Officer, Background Investigator.

1 Year Ellis County Sheriffs Department
Patrol Officer

4 Years in Partnership Buying/Selling/Training Horses
selling horses to Police Departments for their mounted patrol units. (it got to where the horses were eating better than we were).

Currently 5 years in the Counseling Field
Assisting those with Substance Abuse Issues get into treatment, other counseling services.

Hey, Mark! You were a HAWK operator? I was a CW/HP technician for two years, after a year in school at Redstone Arsenal. I was Army, but we had Marines, Germans, and Saudi Arabians in class there. Patriot was in development at Bliss, were you in on that?

I've been a journeyman carpenter, drove piling for years, certified paralegal since 1970, also criminal defense investigator freelancing for 10 years and then working for a large defense law firm since 1989 in NYC. I've owned my own electronic business and outfitters company the best job I had hunting and fishing and getting paid for it!

Now on disability and retired!

Dean from NY now

I've been despairingly wrangling videotapes for a once-precious TV network for ten years because I can't think of anything I else I either want to do and/or get hired for. Unlike our two major competitors, we're not union and pay is dismal. Our CEO makes more than 2,000 times what I do. (For the first five years, I was a per-diem schlub, virtually without benefits. Good thing for me there was a small family real-estate windfall earlier this year.)

I'm a writer by DNA, but after an unfortunate freelance nightmare with The House of Mickey (home-video division) many years ago, I decided to reclaim my amateur standing and keep writing and work separate. (Yeah yeah yeah, there were few dozen freelance articles for ACOUSTIC GUITAR Magazine until they shoved a blatant bit of PR hype of their own conjuring under my byline, but still in all, the pay wasn't enough to jeopardize my amateur standing.) Too many illiterate vandals with red pencils. So I've been doing what I know--no longer what I like--following an unfortunate college choice to major in Radio/Television/Film. (My haunting nightmare is that I changed colleges and didn't double-major in Music and English at the first/good one.)

It wasn't until two years ago that I discovered there was such a trade as "Archaeoastronomer," but as a Cretaceous specimen of 55 myself, I don't have time to go into retrograde and get three useful degrees, then jump back in the workforce just in time for Alzheimer's to claim its due.

Nevertheless, I'm lucky to have dabbled around music (retail, radio, instrument) as a sidelight, given my drastic lack of native instrumental ability. Nothing like 43 years of resolutely refusing to yield to the obvious.

If I hang on until 2153, I hope to try that retirement thing.

Stephen - The H.A.W.K. gig was back in the 80's, went to H.A.W.K. school March 80 - June/July 80 at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas (1 barracks for Marines on a huge Army base). To the best of my knowledge I believe the Patriot was in the initial stages of prototype. We thought back then that H.A.W.K. would be around for ever, but the logistics of hauling all the radars/equipment from point A to point B (as you know, it took about 12 to 15 6X trucks) was crazy at best. Just too much stuff not mobile enough but really a good system for taking planes out of the sky...They were talking at the time of changing everything over to the "Stinger Missile System" Which was a one shot deal, and once you shot you threw down the tube (kind of like the old "Bazooka" or the "L.A.W. Light Antitank Weapon" and got the hell out of there so the bogie's (bad guys) couldn't find you..... kind of like throwing a baseball through your neighbors window then skirting it out of there as not to get caught.

A good part of my working life has been playing music. These days I drive a school bus, work part time in an auction mart, do sessions, and spend most weekends out of town gigging! During the summer months I am on the road!

Music still accounts for about 60% of my income!.....life is good!


Carter D-10 Nashville 1000/400

Tele.....twin.......boss pedals

I retired from the Navy in 1997 as a welder,in 1998 I was re-hired by the Navy as a welder at the same job as before but more$$.(my non veteran co workers call me a double dipper but they never went to sea for months at a time pulling watches at all hours so i just smile at them when I pull in an extra paycheck every month)

as little as possible.

Own a billiard room and sports bar in Orange County, CA. Played some professional pool for a while, but had the savvy to not try it for a living.

I also acquired a Ph.D. in psych along the way. Believe it or not my education really helps in this business.

Play a few steel gigs every year. Now I'm president of Fullerton South Rotary Club and play steel at our annual fund raiser, which is coming up in about 3 weeks.

Stay at home dad. Best job I've ever had. The pay isn't too great, but the benefits are unbeatable!

Before that, I was a database administrator.

Before THAT, I used to drive across the country in a stinky van with a bunch of degenerates playing brutal hardcore for a bunch of degenerates. We called it "touring"...funny, but I never saw anything except highways and the worst parts of nearly every big city in the country. Not much of a tour if you ask me!