In 1970, John was considered “the young kid” in the Plant Operations Department and was given most of the equipment repair and cleaning projects.  “At that time in my life, I was happy to be given the overtime hours,” said John.  “I learned so much about the Hospital’s HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) system, boilers, and medical gas and air systems.  Since all of my coworkers in Engineering were older, I would crawl into the boilers to clean and repair them.  I received a lot of hands-on experience that I was able to build on over my 45 years at LMH.”

John earned his stationary engineering license in 1973 and the timing was right for him to become an Engineer at LMH.  He enjoyed a daily workload of repairs through 1978 when he was promoted to the position of Chief Engineer – which would later be retitled as Engineering Manager.  At certain points during John’s career at LMH, he managed the Maintenance Shop and Plant Operations, which included building and plumbing supervision.

“The things I loved most about my job were the challenges it brought along with new projects to work on each day.  I had certain daily routines to check and make sure equipment was running correctly, but I also had new tasks which were always changing and never redundant.”

Since his retirement, John enjoys being able to spend more time with his wife, Christinea, and has embarked upon a new hobby of woodworking with his friend and fellow LMH retiree, Bob Townsend.  John also is keeping busy by drag-racing cars and maintaining such on a new lift he installed in his garage.  John has a “pile of grandkids” and is currently crafting a wooden cabinet for his new granddaughter who will be born in 2016.