My work journey
Right out of high school in 1960 my dad told me to "go see our church friend Art out at North American Aviation (NAA)". Art was the one that did the hiring for NAA. So I went to NAA and asked Art for a job. He said he would hire me but the job would probably only last for 6 months. I hired in on October 10th 1960. February 1, 2011 I finally retired from Boeing. (Started at NAA, Rockwell bought NAA, Boeing bought the A/C division from Rockwell)
I started out on a modification line working on F-86's. My job was installing things in the main wheel wells. That only lasted a short time. The guy that did the cabin sealing and pressurizing needed some help and since I was small they asked me if I wanted to work with him. So I became a cabin sealer. That saved me from being cut before my probation period was over. 3 of my high school buddies hired in the same day I did and they didn't make it through they're probation period.
After a couple of years of being a Cabin Sealer, my Lead man told me I should become an Aircraft Electrician. He said "that's where the money is". So I did and that ultimately led to me becoming a Final Assembly Checkout Electrician. Now I was making the Big Bucks.
The photo on the left is a picture of me putting the compass correction
cards on the canopy of a F-100F just prior to it going out the door to the Flight Line.
At that time I was a Final Assembly Check-out Electrician. Those
were the good old days when they would give me an airplane and it
was my job to check out all the systems to make sure everything
worked before it left the hangar. Back then we didn't have "teams"
of engineers and "test directors". They gave us a set to Tech Orders
and schematics and told us "make it work".