What do you do for a living?

Primarily I’m a cattle farmer. But as with most farming operations I end up being an investor in land almost as much as anything.

How would you describe what you do?

We run 8,000-9,000 head of cattle a year and they come in as small calves weighing 300 pounds and we grow them up to about 1300 pounds and then sell them to a packing plant.

What does your work entail?

Well, I’ve got about the equivalent of 8-9 full time employees and then some additional part time workers.  I manage them and then there’s a fair amount of routines that I do myself on a daily basis. We do a fair amount of our own construction work since it’s a large operation.  So sometimes I’ll lead crews on that, then also there is the routine stuff like caring for the cattle, doctoring them, feeding them, etc.

And I’d say that I probably used to probably put in a total of 80-90 hours a week and now as I have gotten older, I try to do it at about 60-70 hours.

How did you get started?

I went through college with a chemical engineering degree and then a law degree.  I worked out in the law industry for four years and my dad hit me up again to come back to the farm. Growing up I would have never thought I’d do this in my life but I did and it has turned out great.  I came back in 1979, in 1979, that date may not sound important to you, but in that year 1979-1980, that was end of the boom in agriculture in terms of livestock prices, grain prices, land prices, just rocketed upward and it looked like it would go on forever.

And then about 1980, boy we had a tremendous not only a recession, but a depression in agriculture and where our commodity prices collapsed and in our area.  Land prices from about 1980-85 reduced over by more than half and we barely made it through it. We made it through it and in hindsight, I still do not know how we did it. We were able to fight through the tough times and even acquire and buy more land as people went under during the hard times.

When I had come back we typically ran 2,000 head of cattle and over a number of years I doubled that from 2,000 to 4,000 and then I doubled again from 4,000 to 8,000.

What do you like about what you do?

I like not having any boss other than the marketplace.  There’s no one I report to other than the marketplace.  And that’s really the ‘hub’ of what I do, which is to combine land, capital, and resources to produce cattle for market at a significantly cheaper cost than the marketplace average.  And, so you have to use your business and economic skills to find ways to combine all those things to bring your product to the market in the most efficient way possible.  And I really enjoy that aspect of it and challenge.  If we do that right then we can set money back and expand our operations.

What do you dislike?

Until recently, there was a fair amount of risk since we were expanding and borrowing a lot of money.  So there were a few sleepless nights when you might have an economic reversal in the market.

Having employees is probably the greatest joy and the greatest headache in life and that can be somewhat difficult.  But I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years now and you learn mechanisms of how to deal with managing employees, so it becomes easier to deal with over time.  But I think in this business that labor issues in general are probably one of the biggest headaches that people will have.

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

If we sell our cattle for more than what our expenses are we make money.   And the secondary way is just the long term appreciation of your real estate.  And so, those are probably the two, the realized profits and the unrealized profits.

How much money do you make as a cattle farmer?

Well, I hate to go there, but given that we’re a capital intensive operation we might net $200,000-$300,000 would probably be typical at this point after costs.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

One, they would need to spend quite a bit of time in an apprenticeship with an existing operation for a period of years to figure out what works and what does not and I was fortunate enough to have my dad for that.  There are so many nuances you have to pick up on; whats going to be the most cost effective way to do it this year, working around weather, economics, people, and the contractors. I’d say if somebody was going to do this that they would clearly need to spend a number of years with somebody on the inside to get a good understanding of what’s going on.

There have been many, many cases where a wealthy person that has made money, inherited money, or made money in another industry decided to step into agriculture and most of the time they literally get their head handed to them and and lose a lot of money.  They think farming is simpler and easier than it is and they can apply knowledge from another industry and do it better than a lot of the cattlemen already out there.  But the majority of the time they lose their shirts.  And it’s because they don’t know the nuances of the business.  So, I would say it’s very important to get an apprenticeship and work in this business for a while to really understand what all goes into it.

What is most challenging about what you do?
Managing employees where they can work together, be productive, and have a similar vision of what we’re trying to accomplish.  That’s probably the biggest challenge requires the most of my ‘higher level thinking’, if you will.

What is most rewarding?
Clearly the fact that everything is so visible. Your crops, you can see if things have gone well or gone poorly. With the livestock, you can both see in the animals and you can see in the financial returns if things are going well or going poorly.  Or if a piece of farm equipment breaks down and you can see it get repaired.  You’re dealing with physical, tangible things.

Also, being outside is rewarding.   I bet most of my employees, one of the reasons they’re here rather than a higher paying job in town is that they’d rather be outside even though it’s often too hot or too cold, or raining and the wind blowing, we’re just kind of the type of people that don’t like being cooped up I guess.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

To work with an existing operation to gain the experience.  That is first and foremost.  And then, if you’re wanting to get into the business, try looking for an existing operation that has shut down, or gone under financially etc.  Because the infrastructure, feed lots, facilities, etc. can be so expensive, you really need to get a good deal on those things to get started.  And so, your physical facilities would already be set up and ready to go instead of having to start with raw land from sratch.

But I can’t stress enough about having experience in the business.  Go work on a farm somewhere because boy, trying to jump in without the experience, you could have a Ph.D. in agronomy and livestock, and the chance of success would be about as strong as doing brain surgery on yourself, the chance of success is going to be pretty remote.

How much time off do you get/take?

Typically with family vacations, a week or ten days.  But also there will be some agricultural events or such that I will take off for and I really enjoy.

But I don’t really take that much vacation.  As they say ‘work is only work if there’s something else you would rather be doing’.

When things are going well if I was offered to have a limo pick me up and a leer jet take me to the Super Bowl and then bring me back, I’d say, “No, I want to stay out here with my Track-ho and keep digging.” Or whatever job I’m working on.

And so, vacation only works if there’s something else you would rather be doing and in many cases, I probably get more joy out of this than normal people would.  It’s one of those jobs, if you didn’t love it, you’d hate it.  Fortunately I love it.

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

One, that agriculture today is mainly the family farm with the husband, the wife and the kid doing all the labor.  The most successful farming operations are much larger and would almost be considered businesses or industry.

Another one is that the economics are fairly easy, when in fact, the economics keep knocking people out of agriculture.  There is a relatively small number that go ahead and prosper.

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

I think in all of life, farming or whatever you do, what achieves and determines success is how well one is able to interact with other people.

Where you’re able to reach common goals, resolve conflicts, achieve win-win solutions, and have everybody on the same page.  Employers, suppliers, people I sell to, that is probably the most neglected item and it is clearly the most important.

You’ve got to foster relationships in this business, and in any business, and focus on how you and the people you do business with can grow together.  All too often I’ve seen people worry about how much the other guy is making, or how much some supplier of theirs is making, instead of looking at whether the relationship is mutually beneficial or not.

People who have done well in this business did not put together a big fortune by going out and screwing other people, or nickel and diming people, they did it by making others successful.

What do you do for a living?

Technically you would call it a stream restoration engineer. It falls under the broader category of environmental engineering.

How would you describe what you do to someone?

You could probably boil everything that I do down to the main concept that we want rivers to transport dirt correctly. Now that sounds pretty boring but it entails a river depositing too much sediment or eroding away too much sediment from the banks so what we do is we take the stream systems in urban or in rural settings and we rebuild them to reflect what they would have been had they been left natural.

What does your work entail?

We do all of the site analysis, the initial data collection. We do a lot of surveying with laser survey gear or aerial survey gear if we get flown. We do the request for proposals. We do the scope of work, all the paperwork associated with getting the project, then once we get the initial data we do the design. We do the contracting too and we use a lot of computer system design software. After the design is done we move into the construction that we oversee. And then afterwards, there’s usually some period of monitoring involved where we say OK how has the habitat improved or not improved since we did this restoration so we can learn a little bit more.

A lot of the misconception[about engineers] people get in school is that engineering is just strictly math, science, and formulas and is very boring and you’re always at a computer with a bunch of nerds. But a lot of what we do is outdoors. A lot of it is data collection. A lot of it is site visits. It’s not just the applying of the formulas. There’s a lot of creativity. To design a stream and make it flow wherever you want it is very fun and it’s usually with a lot of outdoorsy and outgoing people.

What is a typical work week like for you?

There is no typical work week. Some weeks in the summer, because we have or we do all our construction during the summer, we can be working straight for ten days. Obviously since we’re working in rivers it’s very dependent on weather so you can be working straight for ten days and then have seven days of rain where you have to get everything out of the river because you don’t want everything washed away so it’s heavily dependent on the weather in the summer. In the winter you’re doing all your extra work and getting things ready for the construction period. But I think it’s probably the same with most jobs these days you could expect to work a 40 or 50 hour week every week on average.

In the summertime it’s mainly outdoors during the day but I’ve done projects in the winter months where we’re in streams in November/December/January where you’re wearing a 5/8 inches or ¾ inch thick wetsuit just to keep yourself warm. There’s blocks of ice hitting you so it is kind of intense. So these projects can be done during the winter but it’s not ideal. Usually in the winter it’s a lot of computer work.

How did you get started in this career?

My dad is an engineer so I’ve been doing engineering since I was just about a knee high and so I’ve kind of had this engrained in my brain. I love being outside. I love getting my hands dirty. I like collecting my own data and then doing the analysis. I guess I just kind of defaulted into it by not wanting to do anything else.

What do you like about what you do?

I like that it improves habitat. I like that it’s good for the environment. I like that you get involved with communities. Plus most of people are usually really happy with the work that we are doing, that we have done, or that we will do for them. It’s also just fun managing people, time, and budgets and seeing your initial site go from something that you designed, to something you constructed, and then to something that people can enjoy.

What do you dislike about it?

The variability in the hours is sometimes very hard to handle. Like when you are trying to work the 60 or 70 hour weeks. Those get you exhausted, you’re tired and your back hurts, your knees hurt, and your hands hurt so it’s not as much fun. You miss out on Friday and Saturday nights sometimes. It’s definitely worth it but maybe not to you at the time.

Also a lot of times we are involved with many, many, many different groups, government and private agencies, and towns so there is a lot of communication that needs to be done.  A lot of people have their hands in these projects a lot of the time and so it’s annoying sometimes to have to report to 50 different people and agencies who aren’t always sure of what they’re talking about even though they’re the ones making the decision.

How do you make money or how are you compensated in this job?

We put out a whatever request for proposal and draft up a scope of work. Whatever we budget for our time for the project is usually what we have to get paid so sometimes you make a bunch, sometimes you lose your shirt but you usually have a good idea of how you’re going to come out so it’s not hourly it’s sort of project by project.

How much money do you make in this job or career?

Well it’s very variable depending on what projects we get and how much we think that we are going to need for each one which can obviously vary greatly from project to project but I would say on average right now I probably make around $50-55 a year.

How much money did you make starting out in this career?

My first job I was paid $42,500 and it was doing more civil engineering. I was doing parking lots designs and things like that. That was with my Bachelor’s straight out of college.

Are there any perks associated with this job?

The fast cars and women are great. Joking. It takes a certain person to want to be an engineer. Usually the first two years of engineering school you see about half the kids dropout and go somewhere else. So it definitely takes a certain type of person but you feel really good about the work that you’ve done and the work that you’ve done hopefully helping people and helping the environment . I think that that would probably be the biggest perk that we see.

Also, you do get to set your own hours. Yes, the work needs to get done but if it rains and you can’t get out there then you don’t have to work that day. Or if you are ahead of schedule you can take a few days off so setting your own schedule and working outside and being very physical in the work that you do is nice. It’s not monotonous, the site is always changing, the people are always changing, it’s very dynamic.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

Again the hardworking thing definitely comes into play and you really have to be a critical thinker. You’ve got to be able to think ahead and be willing to sort of work outside of any scope that people might normally expect to work in. As far as backgrounds it’s a lot of math, a lot of science and engineering classes. People do tend to have a lot of different backgrounds in this field; people can be biologists, zoologists, entomologists as well as engineers. There’s a bunch of different reasons to do stream restoration and so really you want to know a lot about flowers, plants, sediment transport, hydrology, hydraulics, all of that different stuff.

As far as schooling is concerned, as with any degree that you get these days you don’t learn much about the real world in school. You take a lot of engineering classes and they tell you a lot of math and formulas and science and then you get out in the real world and you sort of learn that there are programs to do that or you can’t just apply something. You have to go out and get your hands dirty and figure it out for yourself and how to apply it.

If you’re specifically interested in stream restoration or environmental engineering I would say definitely enroll in engineering your freshmen year of college because you can’t really transfer into it unless you’re coming from something with a heavy math and science background. I would say do internships, get out and volunteer, things like that. That all gives you incredibly valuable experience. But as far as college, just takes your chance in engineering. Who knows, you might like it and if not you can always switch out and you’re already ahead for whatever else you might want to do.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The interaction between project managers, town officials, the public, the outreach to the public—all of that. It’s a very, it can be a sensitive process. It can be time consuming. It can be frustrating. So dealing with the different branches of the people who are involved with the project, it’s a difficult task as well as just the sheer planning that is involved with a lot of these things. You don’t want to flood people. You don’t want to make anybody angry so there’s a lot of thinking ahead and really seeing your projects as a whole.  Those are probably two of the toughest things.

What would you say is most rewarding about it?

Like I mentioned earlier being outside is great. I think it’s really rewarding being able to go from breaking ground or standing on a site doing the survey, taking the existing data, coming up with a design, building it sort of with your own two hands, and then seeing the results afterwards. The entire process is just—it’s a lot of fun to be able to build something like that. That’s one of the more rewarding things and the community responses are usually pretty positive and that’s always fun to see.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Stick with your classes and stick with engineering in school. They try and weed people out in engineering by making you take hard classes and boring and general classes your first two years before you start getting into the interesting stuff. A lot of people think that engineering of any sort, not just environmental engineering, is all just math and science and formulas and books and reading and that type of thing and it’s not. It’s very visible these days in the things that you do. It makes a difference and it’s a lot of fun once you are out of school.

Also with engineering there’s always going to be jobs. Engineers do everything to do in the city like transportation, water, communications, roads, anything like that and so there’s probably always going to be jobs as long as there are humans.

How much time off do you get or take?

Standard one week of sick, two weeks of vacation but really you can take off as much time as you want as long as you get your work done. If you are able to complete it in one day, great then you’ve got the rest of the time of the project off but that’s probably not going to happen. Overall though I would say that I get more than the average person at about four weeks a year.

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

Well like I was saying earlier a lot of the misconception people get in school is that engineering is just strictly math, science, and formulas and is very boring and you’re always at a computer with a bunch of nerds. But a lot of what we do is outdoors. A lot of it is data collection. A lot of it is site visits. It’s not just the applying of the formulas. There’s a lot of creativity. To design a stream, make it flow wherever you want it is very fun and it’s usually with a lot of outdoorsy and outgoing people.

The next question is what are your goals and dreams for the future in this job?

Right now a buddy of mine and myself are working to develop a program. It’s a program that we will hopefully turn into a software program one of these days that will take your existing data and all your parameters that you can find into this spreadsheet program and it’ll output all the information that you need for your design. It will take a lot of the danger and human error out of the work.

It will make it so that everyone can do this because we want people to be doing it who are not only engineers but who are biologists or somebody who wants to make a river more healthy for the fish habitat, for butterflies, for anything, even worms. So we want to make it more available for the public to be able to do without having to know what the engineering and math and science is behind it.

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

Stream restoration is a growing field. It’s a dynamic field. There are practices that we did five years ago that we don’t use anymore because they’re debunked. They don’t work as well as other things and it’s fun working in a field that is growing. You get to come up with new stuff and new ways to do these things. It’s sort of a playground and it’s creative and you don’t always have a boss telling you what to do and how to do it because we’re always pushing the envelope to come up with a better way to do things.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a professional bass fisherman.

How would you describe what you do?

My job really consists of two ways for me to make a living. Number one is to catch fish in tournaments and the prize money is a big way that I pay my bills. And the second way that I make a living is through sponsorships and representing a whole host of different companies with my main sponsor being Kellogg’s.

What would you say your work entails?

Well, it entails, number one, working hard and going to numerous lakes all over the country and meeting some of the best fishermen in the world and really trying to figure out the fish.

You’re competing against 150 of the best fishermen in the world. To compete at the highest level like that is the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my life.

I have to pattern fish going into an event and then make good decisions and catch those fish during events so you can place high. If you do that you get paid well. The second part of that is promoting products everywhere I go.

What’s a typical workweek look like for you?

If it’s a tournament week it gets pretty hectic. We have three official practice days on the FLW tour. We have an off day where we get equipment ready and we also do things for sponsors. Then our events starts. We have two days of events then they cut the top 20 the third day and down to the top 10 on the last day. So if I don’t make those last two days, I have to work an outdoor expo show that I do at a convention center.

So I’m usually tied up for about 7 days on a tournament week.   And then between tournaments I spend a lot of working out physically. I do a lot of annual quarterly reports for sponsors and then just do some computer work. So it’s really different from a tournament workweek. I spend a lot of time with my son and wife at home between these two.

How did you get started in this career?

I got started by competing at the lower levels and I qualified my way up to a tour level in 2008.

But I really got started first as a young boy growing up on a farm; hunting and fishing and spending a tremendous amount of time outdoors fishing in creeks and ponds and that kind of thing. And then when I got into High School I had a really close family friend of ours, named Danny Sincoat, take me to a tournament and he did pretty well.  I really got bit by the bug after that competition.

So that’s really all I wanted to do. I’ve wanted to be a professional fisherman ever since I was probably 10-years-old.

I went to college and got an Ag/Business degree from Arkansas Tech. I actually worked for Tyson Foods, where I started as a supervisor trainee in one of the plants and then worked my way up. I became a plant manager when I was about 28 and then did that job for about 6 years. And at the end of that, about ’07, I actually started working my way towards qualifying for the FLW tour. I had to make a decision there to continue working for Tyson Foods and pursue that career long-term or fish full time. So I chose, with the help of my wife, to be able to pursue my real dream of bass fishing.

What do you like about what you do?

Number one I love to be outdoors. I like to be out in God’s creation all the time and be outdoors. I also love the competition. I’ve been a competitive person and involved in competitive sports my whole life, so I just love the competition.  I love getting to work with people and kids too. I get to speak to a lot of different schools so I really enjoy that portion of it as well.

What do you dislike about this job?

Probably the travel. My family gets to go with me about half the time. I’m away from home some. So I don’t like being away from my wife and my little boy. But on the other part of that, I get a lot of quality time, 2 and 3 weeks at a time solid with them so it probably evens out. But I hate being away from home.

How do you make money or how are you compensated in this job?

Two ways; prize money in the tournaments and sponsorships money.  And some sponsors are product sponsors only. Some sponsors are product and pay, and some sponsors are just pay. It varies across the board.

How much money do you make as a pro bass fisherman?

It varies from year to year. My first three years in the sport were around $130,000 a year. The last couple have been kind of tough, they were in the $50,000 range. So it varies for me between $130,000 down to $50,000, depending on the year.

How much money did you make starting out?

I was very fortunate in 07’ my first year on the FLW tour.  I think I won about $130,000 that year. So having that happen on my first year out was a big blessing.

What education or skills would say are needed to do this?

I would say definitely a college degree. When I speak at schools, I always tell people if you want to be a professional bass fisherman you really need a college degree.  I think you’ve got to have a degree, especially nowadays. There’s a lot of competition. A lot of people try to do it and there’s only so many sponsor dollars. And really a marketing degree is a big part. Marketing and public speaking are a really big part of being professional fisherman as well.

As far as skills, you’ve got to be blessed with some outdoor skills because you’re going up against guys that are just unbelievably good.  You’ve got to have a really positive attitude and you’ve got to be willing to work really hard.

What would say is the most challenging about what you do?

You’re competing against 150 of the best fishermen in the world.  To compete at the highest level like that is the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my life.

What would you say is most rewarding?

No doubt about it, it’s when you make a top 10 or win in a tour event and you have success against the top guys in the world, and have success against some of the guys you’ve grown up reading about and have so much respect for.  It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that.

What advice would offer someone considering this career?

A couple things. Number one, there’s no substitute for time on the water. Experience is a huge thing. So I would spend as much time in the outdoors as you can.  Number two is start off as co-angler in some of the lower levels. When you’re first starting off, try to fish with as many different people as you can and it’ll give you a different look. Each angler is going to fish a little bit different. I would really recommend someone spend some time in a coangler’s division or as an amateur in the back of the boat first.

How much time off do you get or take?

Three solid months off at the end of the year and then there’s sporadic weeks throughout the year that I’m off.  I fish about 16 events a year. There is quite a bit time off as far as when you’re not actually having an event.

What’s a common misconception people have about what you do?

That it’s really easy and you just go out there and fish and it’s really relaxing. It’s the farthest thing from that as you can be. There’s nothing relaxing about it.

You’re trying to represent your sponsor and you’re trying to do well.  If you have some periods when you don’t do well, you probably start losing sponsors. That hurts the pocketbook.  There’s a lot of pressure to perform just like any other professionally athlete.

What are your goals and dreams for the future in this career?

Number one, I’ve won every level except the tour level, so I want to win at the tour level. Number two, I want to make as many championships as I can.

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

What I would encourage everybody to do is really look into the sport more and see really how big it is. If you’re not familiar with professional bass fishing, go to www.flwoutdoors.com. Go to my website, www.gregbohannan.com or watch it on TV on Sunday on the Versus station and take a minute to see really how big the sport is. I think there’s 70 million people that fish. So that’s a big portion of the people out there.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a full time ocean lifeguard in San Diego

How would you describe what you do?

Basically it is helping people in need, giving them band-aids, CPR, first aid, water rescue, river rescue, all sorts of stuff.

What does your work entail?

We have a lot of people on the water here in San Diego so we do a lot of ocean water rescue.  We also have a river rescue team when rivers flood.  We have dive rescue teams, so we can go straight into the water and touch the bottom.  We do a lot of boating rescues also where we put out fires if needed.

What is a typical workweek like for you as a lifeguard?

A typical week is never the same.  It’s typically very active, we do a lot of in-house training, non-stop duty calls, and rescues etc.  But it really depends on the weather, how the water is, and the time of year.

How did you get started?

For me it was straight out of high school and during college it was a part time job.  I was working here in the summers and then would go back to college during the fall and winters.  This is now my 11th full year.

What do you like about what you do?

I like helping the public, whether it is answering a question or saving a life.   Plus, I also like that I’m on the beach in flip-flops and a t-shirt.

What do you dislike?

Maybe the water getting cold in the winter, that is about it.  The water gets real cold.

How do you make money or how are you compensated?

We are hourly employees, so we work a forty-hour workweek and we get paid based on that.

How much money do you make as a lifeguard?

For first timers, they start at about $15 dollars an hour.  Full time, they start at about $22 dollars an hour.

How much did you make starting out as a lifeguard in this career?

When I first started 11 years ago I was only making $10 an hour.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

Basically you just need a high school diploma or a GED.  Then to become an actual lifeguard you need lifeguard training.  So they hire you and put you in lifeguard school and also about forty hours worth of first aid class.

What is the most challenging?

Just trying to stay fit and healthy.  It can be pretty dangerous around the cliffs in the water, so a lot of people get hurt, we are prone to injuries, so it’s challenging to stay in shape and stay healthy.

What is most rewarding?

When you get a thank you from a visitor.  Or when you save someone’s life and get a ‘thank you’ or they give you a hug.  That feels pretty good.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Train hard, you’ve got to be in pretty great shape, it is a demanding job, and just enjoy helping other people, that is what the job is about.

How much time off do you get/take?

We work five or six days a week depending on what schedule you are on.  You tend to work weekends so you are off Mondays and Tuesdays most of the time.  When you sign up to do this job you know you are not going to have normal weekends like everyone else.

Okay so what is a common misconception that people have about what you do?

Maybe that show Baywatch.   I’m still trying to live that down.

What are your goals or dreams for the future?

Well working here is the dream.  But I want to continue doing my best to make sure that nobody drowns, and just keep helping people out.

What do you do for a living?

I am a football coach and Co-Defensive Coordinator and linebackers coach at Mississippi State.

How would you describe what you do?

I’m a coach and a mentor to my players. I try to instill values, work ethic, motivation and those kinds of things to eighteen to twenty year old kids.  I game plan and do schemes for upcoming opponents during the week.  I try to put out the best product that we can on Saturdays and hopefully win championships.

What does your work entail?

The biggest part of it is recruiting. And the recruiting aspect is a 365 day a year process. There’s also the coaching and practice preparation, and those kinds of things change throughout the year. Starting in August we have a preseason camp that will last about a month and then the season starts. We’ll be constantly game planning during the season. Game days are on Saturdays or Thursdays, whatever the case may be. And then come December and January, we’re out on the road recruiting and visiting schools and homes every day for two months.

If you can live without football or can live without coaching, don’t do it. But if that’s what your passion is, and you wake up in the morning and that’s what you’re thinking about, dreaming about, and wanting to do, then just go all out for it.

Then February and March is off-season conditioning, getting the players ready to start spring ball and getting them in shape. Then the end of March, beginning of April is spring training where we practice amongst ourselves for about a month. Then during May, we’re out on the road recruiting again evaluating juniors and seeing high school coaches. And then the early part of June will be high school camps where we’ll have kids on our campus working out.  Then halfway through June and most of July is vacation.  Come August we crank it back up again and do the same schedule.

What does a typical work week look like?

Sunday we’ll come in if we played a game the night before and watch the previous nights or afternoon game. We’ll grade it, evaluate it, take notes on it and that same day we will start game planning on our next week’s opponent and actually have a short practice with the team. We go over corrections and start implementing the game plan for the next week’s opponent.

Then Monday we’ll get in at six in the morning and go till about eleven or twelve at night game planning for the next Saturday. Then Tuesday we’ll game plan all day, practice in the afternoon and come back in that evening and have more meetings, and watch practice on video tape. Wednesday is a little more of the same thing as Tuesday except on Wednesday nights we make recruiting calls. So when the second practice is over, we’re on the phone with recruits and coaches.

Thursday we do meetings, game planning, and finish up the weeks schedule and have practice again. And Thursday nights is usually date night with our wives, so it’ll be the first night of the week we’ll get to see our wives. Fridays are a little bit more low key but we’ll do our picture and reminders for the week for the players and we’ll have tests that we’ll have ready to give to our players that Friday night. Then we’ll have a short practice, and meetings at the hotel. And if we’re traveling, we’ll travel to wherever the game site is of whoever we’re playing. And Saturday’s is just getting ready for the game with the walk through and the pregame and then hopefully have a victory that night.  We have twelve weeks of that.

How did you get started in this career?

I played college football, and when I was done playing my college coach told me that he thought I would make a great coach. I hadn’t really thought about it that much before but I said I’d look into it. So I did student teaching at a high school and while I did that, I actually coached the high school team and just fell in love with the environment and coaching.

After that first year of coaching high school ball I got a graduate assistant job at a wonderful school up in New York City. I did that for a year, and went to graduate school. I got to coach, got my feet wet, and did a lot of grunt work. And then the next two years I was a defensive coordinator for a small Division III school up in Pennsylvania called Albright College. I then went back and did another graduate assistant job at Georgia Tech, just to get a taste of Division I, and see what division one coaching was all about. I did that for two years. After two years doing the graduate assistant job I got promoted to full time, so I was a full time division one coach. I think I was at the time twenty nine years old. I started moving up and going different places from there.

What do you like about what you do?

I just love being around the players, it helps you stay young. I also love college football and football in general. I get paid to watch tape, coach, and be involved in a college football environment every day. The impact you can have on young people’s lives and seeing them develop from an eighteen year old to a twenty two year old young man and have a big impact in their lives is extremely gratifying as well.

What do you dislike about this job?

Maybe at times the hours and the stress that the job comes with would be the only negative. But, you know, it comes with the territory. Actually, with all that being said, there is some excitement along with the stress too, it gets your adrenaline pumping so even though it could be viewed as a negative, it’s still part of what makes the job so fun.

How do you make money, or how are you compensated in this career?

Salary. I’m a salaried employee and then we’ll get bonuses for going to bowl games or good GPA’s etc. We also get paid for working camps during the summer. And then most places have either a car deal where you get a dealers car or they’ll give you a stipend to rent or lease a car.

How much money do you make as a Co-Defensive Coordinator?

Currently $280,000-300,000, in that range.

How much did you start out making in this career?

We start off as a graduate assistant, we basically get tuition and books, some meals, and maybe eight hundred dollars a month to live off of. And then my first defensive coordinator job I made twenty four thousand dollars a year. I did that for two years. I was making about $60,000 at a Division II job and then I started getting more and more compensated as I started moving on up the ranks.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

I got an undergraduate degree in sports management with a minor in coaching. A lot of people get their education degree. I went back and got my education certificate as well, just in case I wanted to coach high school football. But to be honest with you some of the classes that helped me the most were when I did some graduate work in psychology. I did graduate work in educational psychology at Fordham University and undergraduate work in educational psychology or organizational psychology at Georgia Tech.

What would you say is most challenging about what you do?

The recruiting part is probably the most challenging, because you’re going against the same scholarship that every school is able to give. And you’re competing to get to know the recruits and learn what makes them tick and what they’re looking for in a school or in an athletic program.

What would you say is most rewarding about this?

Probably when a young man calls you five, ten, or fifteen years after you’ve coached them and tells you how things that you’ve taught them or lessons that they’ve learned from being around you are actually helping them in their current profession or even with their kids. Those kind of things are probably the most rewarding, knowing that you’ve had an impact on somebody’s life.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Only do it if you love it. If you can live without football or can live without coaching, don’t do it. But if that’s what your passion is, and you wake up in the morning and that’s what you’re thinking about, dreaming about, and wanting to do, then just go all out for it.

How much time to you get off?

After signing day, which is the first Wednesday in February, most coaching staffs get somewhere between three and five days off. Most coaching staffs get spring break off when the university takes spring break. Then during the summer it varies but the vacations range anywhere from three weeks to five weeks vacation during the summer. But the number of Saturdays and the number of Sundays that are spent invested in this profession far compensate any time off.

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

Probably the biggest thing that most people think is that we only work from August until November. Many people can’t understand that there are actually things to do outside of football season, and truth be told, that’s probably some of the busiest times.

What are your goals or dreams for the future for this career?

To try and put myself in a position to be a head coach of a division one school, positively impact a lot of people, try and do things the right way, help kids get their degrees and an education, and win a lot of football games.

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

I guess just that everybody sees the glory that comes from when you win games and now a days it’s almost like a TMZ society with college football on blogs, message boards, and ESPN.com. There’s a lot of negative that’s always being written about college football coaches or college football players. But the truth of the matter is 98% of the time people that are in this profession are in it for the right reasons and 98% of the kids that are involved in college football are some of the best and brightest in the country. And I think sometimes the small percentages of people that are doing negative things get overblown where the majority of people are doing great things and are really trying to make a difference. That kind of gets underplayed a little bit. There are just some great people in this profession and there are some great great kids that play this game.

What do you do for a living?

Construction and Real Estate development.

How would you describe what you do?

I oversee and manage construction and real estate developments for a commercial construction company.

What does your work entail?

We do is anything from land development to the finished product, commercial products, and multi-family products. I’m basically in charge of the initial start of project, all the from when we turn dirt to the finished product.

How did you get started?

My family’s in it and I kind of just fell into it when I didn’t like anything else I did.

What do you like about what you do?

The freedom mainly. It’s basically like being self employed, that’s probably the biggest thing. I kind of set my own hours, leave when I want to, come when I want to. Also I have a lot interaction with people on a daily basis. It’s not the same everyday. I don’t have to worry about going to a desk and sitting there all day long. I can get out and go do things or I can sit at the office and can do the work that I need to there.

What do you dislike?

Some days it can be long and tiresome and you have to deal with subcontractors. Some days are difficult to deal with. Some times it can be rewarding though too. It’s mainly just so many ups and downs in the real estate and construction markets is probably the biggest thing I don’t like.

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

Currently I am paid at just a base salary plus a bonus schedule based on how jobs are completed and the time frame in which they’re done.

How much money do you make?

It’s $250,000 plus. The base salary is six figures plus and then bonuses are based on the projects.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

Basic construction management and management of people. You also need negotiation skills. There’s not actually any degree requirements, granted a construction management degree would help somebody get started. Mainly just having somebody who’d be willing to learn and get into it and figure it out on their own.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Managing and controlling people.

What is most rewarding?

Besides the monetary figure it’s just the benefit of time and having some freedom. I if I want to have a family or if I was married I could easily do that.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

To work under somebody else first and get experience from somebody who has been doing it a while before jumping into it on your own.

How much time off do you get/take?

Guaranteed two weeks but basically whenever I want.

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

Probably that people think I don’t do anything, just because it’s a lot of running around and checking on projects. There’s a lot of driving time, there’s a lot of things that have to be done before and after to make sure the project runs smoothly. Most people don’t ever see all that, because most of it’s done either in person or on the phone or in meetings.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

I want to get into bigger projects, leaning more toward bigger commercial projects. Not like hospitals but maybe institutional development or something.

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

It can be a very rewarding job. It can be very rewarding for people who like to be outdoors and also indoors at the same time. For the most part it’s not a real high stress job, although it can be stressful at times.

What do you do for a living?

I’m a Farrier.

How would you describe what you do?

A Farrier is someone that put shoes on horses and corrects faults in the foot.

What does your work entail?

Well, my job entails me showing up at someone’s house, or them coming to my shop to get shoes put on their horse, or trim their horse’s foot, whichever the case may be. You can set your own hours because you work for yourself. It’s probably about 50 or 60 hours a week because when you get home you’re not done, you’ve got to answer calls that come in from clients later on.

How did you get started?

Well, how I got started in this is I was cleaning tile floor down in Little Rock and I couldn’t find anyone down there that’d come and shoe my old ex-wives horse.

From the leg down a Farrier probably knows more about a horse’s anatomy than a Veterinarian.

I was tired of working at night so I went to shoeing school. And I’ve been shoeing off and on for the last 17 years.

What do you like about what you do?

I like working with the animals. I’d rather work with the animals than people. Because I get along with animals, I understand the animals. That horse won’t lie to me, someone else will. I enjoy the freedom that it gives me, because if I decide that I want a day off, I schedule myself the day off. I can do that pretty easy. You know, my back hurts pretty bad on Saturday when I get done, and I say, “Man thank God I’m done for the week.” But when Tuesday rolls around I’m ready to get right back under it because I enjoy doing this.

What do you dislike?

People not showing up(for appointments). People not doing what they say they’re supposed to do. You know they hold me to the standard, but they don’t hold themselves to one. If they want me at their house at nine o’clock, I better be there at nine o’clock or within 15 minutes or I get talked bad about.

You need to be healthy to do this, there’s an old saying in the Farrier trade ‘you’ve got to have a stronger back than mine’…

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

I charge per horse. I charge $65 on the road to shoe, and $35 on the road to trim, and if it’s over 15 or 20 miles I charge them a trip charge. I try to keep that down to, but with gas being what it is, it can eat my profit up in a hurry. The way I price stuff is I have a philosophy about a living. I want to make a living, I don’t want to kill people, but I want to make a comfortable living. And I try to do that, I try to setup where I can pay all of my bills, and have a little bit extra. I don’t always get that accomplished, but I try.

How much money do you make?

About $30,000. But the sky’s the limit on what you can make.

I’d rather work with the animals than people. Because I get along with animals, I understand the animals. That horse won’t lie to me, someone else will.

You can go into corrective and charge $250 an hour like a surgeon, but you got to be where the horses are(Kentucky, etc).

What education or skills are needed to do this?

There’s a lot of trade schools out there that teach this. You don’t have to go to school, you can climb into a truck with someone that is good and learn, but it would behoove you to go get your basics because they’re going to teach you more about anatomy at the school than you’re going to learn from someone. You need to be healthy to do this, there’s an old saying in the Farrier trade “you’ve got to have a stronger back than mine,” it’s physically demanding.

What is most challenging about what you do?

The corrective part of it and dealing with clients misconceptions. People have a misconception about how horses should be. They all think they know what the horse needs. And what a horse needs varies from show people, to ropers, to cutters, to just standard trail riders.

What is most rewarding?

When you have one limp in and he walks off when you get done. That’s pretty nice.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Run, run hard. No, just kidding. If a person wants to learn bad enough they’re going to be right there to soak it up. You know it’s just one of those things it just depends on the people. How bad they want something. I don’t want to work for somebody else bad enough I’m not going to do this. This job is not for somebody that needs someone to help start them every morning, because it is so physically demanding that on Saturday it’s hard for me to get going.

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

That it’s easy to do. It’s not easy to do. And that a Farrier just changes the shoes. From the leg down a Farrier probably knows more about a horses anatomy than a Veterinarian.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

Well right now there’s an association called the American Farrier’s Association. And I’m in pursuit of my Journeyman(the highest certification in the country).

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

I don’t know, you know there’s a lot of learning to this job and I haven’t learned it all in my almost 17 years I’ve been shoeing. There’s a lot of clinics that I look forward to going to every year because I can better my knowledge, and the better knowledge I have the better these horses and people benefit from it.

What do you do for a living?

I fly 53-echoes in the Marines, they’re a helicopter.

How would you describe what you do?

You go to work, fly for a while, do a lot of paperwork bullshit and then you go home.

What does your work entail?

The last three years I’ve been in training and I’m just now complete with that, so up till now it’s been studying a whole lot. You have to study and get ready for briefs and while I’ve been in flight school that’s what you do basically; get ready, study systems, emergency procedures, aerodynamics, and stuff like that and then you go brief with an instructor. Kind of a one-on-one with someone that’s typically about 5 years older than you that’s been to Iraq a couple of times. Then you go fly for a few hours, land, de-brief and go home and that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing. While I was in flight school down at Pensacola I was probably working maybe 15 hours a week of actual real work and it wasn’t even real work. We didn’t have any kind of job except for flying, that was it. I was with the Navy and I trained with the Air Force too. Now I’m back with the Marines. In the Marines you have a ground job too and my job is operations, I write the schedule. The first month I was there it was about 14 hours a day, 5 days a week so it sucked.

it gets boring flying(jets) when you never see the ground, you’re not going to get shot at, you’re not going to drop that many bombs anymore so…I wanted to fly helicopters, and that’s why I got into helicopters

And it was all paperwork and there was 270 people in the squadron, like half a billion dollars worth of aircraft, writing the schedule for that kind of gets stressful.  When I get out(of training) and get to what we call the “fleet” the “fleet range force” I’ll check in and I’ll get some job. I don’t know what kind of job it will be but probably a few hours a day on a ground job, a few hours a day flying, and a few hours working out or something. It’s not a typical 9 to 5 job. What I’m hoping to do is get on that boat ’cause everybody is either going to Iraq or going on a MEU which is Marine Expeditionary Unit; but if you go on the boat like some…and you’re deploying from the West cost which is where I am moving, you go out for 7 months and you hit Hawaii, Okinawa, Thailand, Australia and all those places, and then if there’s something going on like a natural disaster, like in Indonesia when they had the Tsunami, a lot of the guys I’ve flown with here were all there rescuing people and carrying shit in and stuff like that. Or if China invades Taiwan then you’re the first to go there too, that kind of thing, but the good part is that usually that kind of stuff doesn’t happen and you can go to Australia, Thailand and all those

We get free medical and health insurance. And life insurance is really cheap which is good ’cause we fucking need it.

places and have fun. So that’s what I am hoping to do, that or go to Iraq for 7 months and, yeah…that’s a blast from what I hear.

How did you get started?

Well, I always wanted to fly since I was little and I always wanted to fly jets and I kind of pursued that. I took the Marine route instead of the Air Force like normal people that want to fly because the Marines have air and ground together. So I started flight school, which is kind of a pain to get into, but I got there and I was flying this little jet with the Air Force and it was pretty fun; it wasn’t like a fighter but it was pretty cool. But it gets boring flying when you never see the ground, you’re not going to get shot at, you’re not going to drop that many bombs anymore so…I wanted to fly helicopters and that’s why I got into helicopters.

What do you like about what you do?

Well, I get paid to fly and that’s pretty sweet. I get to live in pretty cool places, get plenty of travel and I work with really good dudes.

What do you dislike?

My helicopter doesn’t have an air conditioner so it’s really fucking hot. And it’s like any big company, you get the whole Office Space effect where you get like 8 different bosses, so there is a little bit of that sometimes.

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

It’s a salary so you get your base salary then you get like a basic allowance for housing. Like if I move to North Carolina, I make a certain

I guess that’s the misconception, people make it(the military) sound more brutal than what it really is. And sometimes it is but I haven’t been yelled at in weeks.

amount and then now I’m moving to San Diego and the amount will double. So it’s wherever you live they set a certain amount for that area.

How much money do you make?

This year about $70,000. Next year it’ll probably be more and I’ll be out in California.

Would you say there are any perks to this career?

Well, you get trained in a pretty valuable skill, they spend about $2 million on every pilot. With helicopter pilots you’ve got a ton of training, so when you get out you have a marketable skill. We get free medical and health insurance, and life insurance is really cheap which is good ’cause we fucking need it.

What education or skills are needed to do this?

You have to have a Bachelors degree. Skills, you have to be really healthy and you’ve got to have, not perfect vision, it doesn’t need to be perfect but pretty close to perfect and it can be corrected by a PRK(laser surgery). To get through flight school you’ve got to be coordinated, and to get through just the Marine shit you have got to be at least semi athletic. If you are good at videogames, that helps. I think that all my Halo playing in college really paid off.

What is most challenging about what you do?

Well, I guess the flying part, like when a bunch of shit’s going wrong in here you’ve got to think pretty fast and work pretty quickly too… like with my helicopter if we lose hydraulics,

To get through flight school you’ve got to be coordinated…If you are good at videogames, that helps. I think that all my Halo playing in college really paid off.

you’re fucked, so you got to do a whole checklist to try an keep them alive. I guess the most challenging thing would be just flying, the stress of flying. I haven’t gone to combat yet so I imagine once I do that, that will turn into the biggest challenge.

What is most rewarding?

I don’t know, you are doing something good, I think for the most part. On the overall strategic level people have different opinions of what we should or shouldn’t be doing. But on a smaller level, at least in my helicopter, I can help. Like a guy at the bar last night was telling me how a Marine had flown in a 53(Helicopter) and saved his buddy while they were getting shot up and they got the fuck out of there. That would be rewarding, I haven’t done that yet. So really for me right now it’s just a lot of fun, I meet good people and travel a lot.

What advice would you offer someone considering this career?

Stick with it. It’s kind of hard sometimes to get into the program. I don’t know, really just stick with it and work your ass off.

How much time off do you get/take?

About two months this year, but I don’t think that will be typical. It’s 30 days paid leave per year is what we get.

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

I’d say pretty much just being in the military people have huge misconceptions. They think it’s all Full Metal Jacket or something. No one really knows the difference between being enlisted or being an officer. My work’s chill, no one gives a shit what time I get there as long as I get everything I am supposed to do done, no one is yelling at me. I don’t know, I guess that’s the misconception, people make it sound more brutal than what it really is. Sometimes it is but I haven’t been yelled at in weeks.

What are your goals/dreams for the future?

I want to work it to where I can get out of the Marines when my commitment’s up. It’s like a six year commitment after you get out of flight school so I’ll be in a total of 8 and a half years. I want to get out and do Heli-skiing and I might go do some work for Blackwater just ’cause they pay a hell of a lot.

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

No, I don’t have any words of wisdom.