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Humanity To Others;Knowledge Is Not Ours To Keep Alone;Your Mind Is Your Most Precious Resource

Cool Jobs

                                                                                                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                 


Field Mechanic

Field Mechanic: This is My Job



Chris Mieras
Ladson, S.C.
Years on Job: 5
Nearly 60 percent of U.S. deaths in Iraq are caused by roadside bombs, which makes Chris Mieras’s goal pretty simple: Keep people alive. As a field mechanic for Force Protection, a military contractor, he has spent two years in Iraq doing maintenance and troop training for IED- and mine-clearing vehicles called Buffaloes. His damage reports have led to improvements in the machinery—with impressive results. Since 2004, the 180 or so Buffaloes in Iraq have withstood a large number of attacks, with just three fatalities. While shifting budgets have left the future uncertain for the $750,000 vehicles, the 39-year-old Mieras will return to Iraq for a third year in April. “These trucks take blasts that amaze me,” he says. “And the soldiers live to tell the stories.”






Naval Chief Safety Officer

This Is My Job - Naval Chief Safety Officer

The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is a dangerous place to work. Catapults launch F-14 Tomcats from 0 to 180 mph in 2.5 seconds and F/A-18 Hornets come in for night landings. A jet blast can throw a sailor into the sea, colossal machinery goes full tilt, and the threat of crashes--not to mention enemy attack--is always present. This is where Cmdr. Brett Schenxnider cracks the whip as safety boss on the <i>USS George Washington</i>. What keeps the ex-helicopter pilot up at night? "The constant battle against inattention," he says. "One moment of carelessness is all it takes."
Interviewed by David Dunbar, Photograph by Monte Isom
Published in the April 2005 issue.




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NUCLEAR-POWERED AIRCRAFT CARRIER
The USS George Washington is a 97,000-ton-displacement vessel with a crew of 5500, capable of carrying 85 planes. It can steam for 18 years before refueling--handy for a ship that's been deployed in the Mediterranean and Arabian Gulf six times (most recently in 2004).

FLIGHT DECK CREWS
As many as 150 sailors may crowd the 1092-ft. flight deck, juggling the movements of dozens of planes. The crewmen are divided into six color-coded teams, says Schenxnider. White shirts handle safety, for instance, while blue shirts are the "chock-and-chain gang" that secures aircraft on the deck. Schenxnider's biggest challenge? Getting gung-ho 19-year-olds to appreciate their own vulnerability. (The experience should prove useful in his next assignment, as executive officer of Tulane University's ROTC program.)

FLOTATION VEST, FLIGHT JACKET
The vest inflates when it hits salt water. The jacket is made of fire-resistant Nomex.

FLIGHT DECK HELMET
The noise on the flight deck hits 130 decibels when jets are taking off. Schenxnider's "cranial" cuts the noise, protects against impacts, and keeps him in radio contact with the flight-deck crew and air boss in the control tower.

A BAD DAY AT WORK
We had a cable snap in 2003 during an arrested landing. The pilot hit the ejection button and the ejection seat worked. The parachute worked. The rescue helo worked--he was right on the pilot within seconds. It all went like a textbook. A good day? Any day that's free of mishaps.

Oceanographer

Oceanographer: This Is My Job

Interviewed by Arianne Cohen
Photograph by Kyle Christy
Published in the October 2006 issue.

Eric Terrill
La Jolla, Calif.
Years on Job: 13
 
As director of one of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's research centers in San Diego, Eric Terrill's job is — in short — to figure out how the ocean works. His research analyzes severe weather's effects on the open sea; in the past year, the 36-year-old has also studied hurricanes for the Office of Naval Research, cleaned beaches for the state of California, and positioned and networked coastal sensors for the U.S. Department of Commerce. “This job is 50 percent scientist, 50 percent engineer and 50 percent adventurer,” Terrill says. “There's never a dull moment.”

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