As a little boy, I always wanted to fly. I didn’t understand what it meant to be a pilot, just that to me, to be in the air was to be free. I grew up during the end of the Cold War, in the shadow of nuclear war with the USSR. I lived under the flight path of Moffett Field (a California Naval Air Station), and would watch the daily flights of U.S. Navy/Lockheed P-3 Orions head out to look for submarines off the Pacific coast. I remember the engine noise would rattle the windows of my bedroom morning and evening as the aircraft departed and returned.
A rocky youth coupled with my 6’-5” stature made it clear that a military career was not in the cards for me. I refocused my efforts and learned how to drive a desk in Silicon Valley’s tech industry. Somewhere in the middle of my career, my mother fell sick from cancer and, within six months, the only things that I had left was her memory and enough money to get a pilot’s license. From that first flight to today, I have been on a journey of hope.
