The Biography of a Very Busy Great Grandfather

Segment Two

My business life started after serving five years in the Canadian Airforce. I had been trained as a chef by a very rich man who taught himself the profession so he could cook for his powerful friends at his lodge that I maintained on 4,000 acres near Pitt Lake British Columbia when I was seventeen.

I chose cooking when I joined the air force and because I already loved the artistic and creative nature of cooking, I chose that trade in my military service. I graduated top of my class and was offered my choice of postings. I chose Baden Soellingen Germany where I served four years.

Part way through that tour, we brought in nuclear missiles to load onto our 104 Starfighter war planes. With the nukes came the American military also. I was elected to open the service area where the loaded starfighters would be launched from.

It was called the QRA, or quick reaction area. I literally baby sat six pilots and six armament techs in the building they spent 24 hours a day in, fully dressed and ready to run to their appointed aircraft.

In doing so, they had to cross a yellow line crossing the mouth of the Quonset. It was called the ‘NO LONE ZONE’. If anyone crossed it alone, they would be shot on the spot by one of two military police (1 American and 1 Canadian), who guarded the birds and the bombs.

We could send up a fully loaded starfighter every 60 seconds in an emergency. There were six jets in six Quonset huts in a circle, surrounded by a double razor wired fence with armed guards and German Sheppard’s. I had to pass through three security checkpoints to get to and from work.

From the military to food service for the next few years, then into the flooring industry and back into the food services industry as camp-manager for the Noranda Mines operation at Hendrix Lake BC.

The next few decades were dominated by business management and ownership plus direct sales and marketing where I owned several start-ups designed to create multiple income strategies that would take the risk out of the home-based business enterprise.
One of the highlights of this period was the day I was honored to carry the Olympic Torch on the relay to the 1988 Calgary winter Olympics.

In 2001, I took the first steps in a ministry to raise awareness to the plight of children, living under the streets of major cities in Romania, Brazil and Guatemala. My mission was to walk 8,540 miles, circumnavigating almost half of North America.

After hundreds of media interviews and hundreds more meetings with politicians from local Mayors, Governors, Premiers, the Bush Jr. White House and Canadian Parliament, the Walk of Hope was completed Nov. 22, 2002 in Phoenix Arizona where it had started 22 months earlier. end of segment two