We all reach milestones of happiness, sorrow and hope on our life's journey, graduation, recovery from an illness, marriage, and children to name a few.
On June 30, I will reach a significant milepost with my retirement. Since 1991, I have had the honor, privilege, and absolute joy to deliver the PG&E Diablo Canyon Marine and Weather Forecast to our customers along the Central Coast.
After June 30, I will no longer be sending out the daily weather forecast by email or broadcasting it on KVEC morning news radio with Andy Morris and Scoot Taylor. However, I will still appear on the Dave Congalton show and write a weekly forecast for Santa Maria Times and the San Luis Obispo Tribune. The weather column will be scaled back to once a month instead of once a week.
This will afford me the time to author a book about the weather and finally organize my photos; more importantly, I will be able to take long trips with my wife, Trish, and have more time to volunteer. We have no plans of moving, as we believe, especially after factoring in the climate, there is no better place to live.
Goodbyes remind you of the things you often take for granted, but the support from the community I have received over the years was certainly not one of them. I feel fortunate and blessed to have a job that makes saying farewell so difficult.
The people that I got to work with, are some of the sharpest and most dedicated I have ever known.
The first part of my Diablo Canyon Power Plant career was with Tenera Environmental Services. I deployed and calibrated seawater temperature recorders from numerous monitoring stations along the Pecho Coast, maintained the Diablo Canyon Waverider Buoy, the Pressurized Ion Chambers (PICS) and helped with oceanographic surveys that required scuba diving and boat operating.
I was later hired by PG&E as an environmental specialist, then as a communications representative where I had the great privilege and challenge of writing a weekly column about our oceans, atmosphere and biosphere.
Throughout my PG&E career, I got to speak to different branches of the military, especially groups from Vandenberg Space Force Base, non-profits, community safety organizations like Fire Safe councils, companies, and numerous service clubs ranging from Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions and Rams, Great AgVenture, League of Women Voters, and just about every high school in San Luis Obispo and northern Santa Barbara counties, Cal Poly, Caltech, Stanford, MIT, Allan Hancock and Cuesta College, Kairos Power, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena.
I provided tours of the power plant to over 25,000 people throughout the United States and the world.
I served on the boards of the Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers, Central Coast Aquarium, PG&E Employees Veterans Resource Group, and United Way of San Luis Obispo County and volunteered for the Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County, American Red Cross, American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, Earth Day at Montaña de Oro State Park and other causes.
With that said, coaching my daughter and sons' soccer and basketball teams while they were growing up was the most enjoyable and rewarding.
The most satisfying aspect of my job was receiving word from someone who decided not to go fishing in the Pacific or take a road trip due to predicted severe weather. Better yet, were the students who wrote me and decided to pursue a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) after a weather balloon launch or a tour of Diablo Canyon.
I came to work at Diablo Canyon because I feel nuclear power can, and will, play an essential role in helping our country gain energy independence and reduce carbon emissions. Throughout my time here, I have contributed to that goal and, in the process, have had the opportunity to provide a service to our community as well.
In closing, I hope you all will have fair winds and following seas.