Here’s where you discover who the Rural Geek is and what he’s all about…
Who is the Rural Geek, really?
When I was younger I used to fight crime with The Dark Knight as part of the Dynamic Duo.
But I’ve since hung up my cape and now just work as a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Air Traffic Controller. I’m also a proud member of the air traffic controllers’ union, NATCA.
Everyone thinks of air traffic controllers in towers at airports, but I’m one of the thousands of air traffic controllers that no one knows about, as I work in an En Route Center.
En Route controllers work at radar scopes some distance from the airspace they’re controlling. I work at the Minneapolis Center located in Farmington, Minnesota, but the airspace I control is in central Iowa and South Dakota, so if you’ve flown in a commercial airliner across the U.S. to or from Los Angeles to Chicago or New York or Chicago or Minneapolis to Denver, crossing the center of the country or in a private plane in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska or South Dakota I may have been involved in controlling your flight.
I’ve worked as an air traffic controller for over 20 years. Prior to getting a job with the FAA I received a liberal arts BS in 1985 from the University of Iowa.
I live on a small farm south of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and Saint Paul) in Minnesota (USA) where my wife and I raise chickens, horses, cattle and goats. She does most of the day to day care for the farm animals while I do the farm maintenance and construction.
We also have several cats and two dogs, including an AKC Champion Standard Poodle named Basil.
My wife and I also own a dog grooming shop where she works and manages. I don’t do pet grooming, but am involved in a lot of other work supporting the business, including computer programming and tech support as well as general handyman work.
The geek in me is a computer and electronics hobbyist, and I write computer programs and play computer games. I’ve done both since I was a teenager.
I’m also a home handyman and tinkerer and my other hobbies include woodworking, metalworking as well as working on various other miscellaneous shop projects and fabrication, including welding. I got started tinkering, inventing and building in my dad’s basement shop as a boy.
I like to keep myself busy with projects! I especially enjoy the challenge of taking projects from concept to design to construction and implementation.
