My career started right after high school as a mechanic’s apprentice and finally I became a “Class A”licensed mechanic. While helping to run our family school bus business as a shop manager, I supervised a number of mechanics and a fleet of over 150 vehicles.  I moved into more of the day-to-day operations with my brother, after our father retired. Here I expanded my learning. After taking a number of courses, I became a safety instructor, driver instructor and ultimately a licensed driver examiner. My duties also included complex school bus route design, which taught me about our region’s road systems, as I mapped out efficient transportation for student travel. This included helping design our own custom computer programs, which ultimately led me to Conestoga College years later for full-time courses in Web Design and Digital Media, after we sold our business. I was on a number of school bus operator boards and also the negotiating team.

My problem-solving skills were in the form of dealing with parents, students, principals, teachers, and drivers. My approach was, “How can we keep your child on the bus without jeopardizing the safety of the rest of the students and the driver?” Rather than, “Your child needs to find their own way to school for the next two weeks.”