I’m going to THE POLE! YES! Last
week I was notified that I was PQ’d (physically qualified) for working at the
South Pole. This was the last hurdle on my three year attempt to go and work
there. It’s been something on my bucket list for a couple of decades and Elsie
gave me the green light to go. The reactions from people have been a variety
but mostly positive, even envious. I
have gotten pats on the back, comments like they wish they were going with me /
I’m going to work there someday, etc.
Then there are those who think my cheese has slipped off my cracker or
my train has arrived at the station without any passengers, well, you get my
drift.
Here is a little bit of
history about me. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a sense of
adventure. When I was a kid, I read boy’s
adventure series books like the Danny Orlis series and the Sugar Creek
Gang. I read a book about the famous
missionary pilot, Nate Saint, who along with 4 others was murdered by the
Huaorani tribe in the dense rain forests of Ecuador. The adventure appealed to me and I wanted to
be a missionary pilot when I grew up which, by the way, I never accomplished. As a teen, I grabbed an opportunity to tour
Europe with a group known as ‘Future Farmers of America’. When I got back from Europe in the summer of
’69, American astronauts landed on the moon.
What an adventure! I had followed
the space race closely in the Lancaster, PA daily rag, ‘The Intelligencer
Journal’. Astronauts were my heroes (not
football players) and I marveled at what they were doing.
That fall, as a senior in
high school, I realized I was a little different. Most of my classmates hadn’t been more than
50 miles from home and places in Europe didn’t interest most of them. The next spring, the farm was sold and not
having any direction, I joined the US Air Force to see the world. Most of my time was spent in two states,
Alaska and New Mexico. I met my future
wife Elsie, in North Pole, Alaska. So we got married and time rolled on. Now she has put up with me for 38 years. I quelled
the adventure side of me for family responsibilities. Three children (Daniel,
Erin & Heidi) came, grew up and moved on in their adult lives. We did take lots of trips to far places and
saw and did many things as a family. But
during the last three decades I have been reading everything that I could get
my hands on about Arctic and Antarctic exploration. I even wrote a Christmas story that occurred
in the Antarctic. Roald Amundsen became
my hero. He ran a smaller leaner meaner
expedition and beat Robert Scott to the South Pole something that some of
today’s companies can still learn from to be more efficient. I had this growing itch to go there someday.
In 2011, after 30 years I
retired from Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
Three months later, I was right back doing my old job as a contractor with
NANA Management Services at Pump Stations 1 & 7. Being a contractor gave me some leeway to
pick and choose a little where and when I worked. I immediately started applying for a position
in Antarctica during the austral summer (our winter).
That first winter the United
States Antarctic Program was changing contracts and I heard nothing. Last fall, I got a call from PAE (a
subsidiary of Lockheed Martin) as I was leaving PS01 to return to PS07. One of the Primary Techs had taken another
job and they wanted me on the ice in 9 days.
With all of the hoops that you have to jump thru that was impossible. With my commitment to PS07 for our winter
months, I sadly declined.
In early July, PAE offered me
a Summer Primary Fire Systems Tech at McMurdo.
I remember signing the offer on July 4th and feeling very
liberated. A month later PAE changed the
offer to the South Pole Station and I took it immediately, not even thinking
twice about it. So I was PQ’d last week
which took almost two months because of my out of town work schedule. So here I am, going TO THE POLE!
