| The first half of my life has
been one wild ride! I’ve been blessed
with marvelous experiences. Life has always been well worth the effort.
While the best is yet to come, I’ll take a moment to tell how I got to
where I am today from my birth 24 December 1955. My mother was a nurse who became an author. Meg is one of the five Lewis girls from Fort Benton, Montana. Steeped in love, they reached out to a lot of people through their lives. An outspoken pacifist and community activist, my mother raised seven children, four of us adopted. In later years, Mom was published in magazines and wrote the children’s book, The Witch in the Attic. Originally from North Dakota, my father, Walter E. Huffman, built a successful small business with solid math and people skills. Sky Flight Incorporated had a fleet of thirteen planes at its peak. Both my parents were pilots, and travel was an important part of our family life. I have many happy memories of the Tri-Pacer and the Twin Beech. In the military surplus Beech A-18, our family flew to San Francisco, Washington DC, and Seattle. Once my father strapped me in where the tank had been removed from a Piper Super Cub and showed me how he worked, passing between fence and power lines at 200 miles an hour in the spray plane. Dad’s primary business evolved as his family grew. Big Timber Farm Supply served his agricultural customers in many ways, selling and servicing John Deere, Farmhand, Purina, and more. By age six, I was working my first job, sweeping the feed warehouse. Over the years I serviced fleet vehicles, burnt weeds, shot sparrows, assisted diesel mechanics, drove delivery trucks, and even demolished a building. This work was in addition to my newspaper route every morning before school. Through the church and SERVAS we hosted guests from around the world in our small hometown, Big Timber, Montana. Mom’s eldest sister, Verneva and husband, Ralph Salisbury (Aunt Teddy & Uncle Randy) traveled to India and Bolivia with the Farmers Union. Their son, Kirby, now lives in Belize. The encyclopedias that lined our walls were only one route beyond our parochial hometown. I was precocious and maintained a 3.5 grade average through my school years. My parents and teachers gave me opportunities to build a solid foundation, but in the early 70’s our heroes were rebels. In 1972, I was expelled from high school for “extreme and unusual hair length.” My extra-scholastic learning began with an ACLU-backed court case against the school. Between expulsion and court, I researched and wrote the most thorough paper of my young life. The federal court, Judge James F. Batton presiding, refused to hear our case. I spent 1973 as a freelance public interest lobbyist in the Montana State legislature. Every morning I would read the report of bills introduced to find issues of interest to me. I would research the details in the basement law library, discussing the fine points of each bill with the law students who worked on it. When I felt my opinion mattered, I would draft a speech and attend the committee hearing. After the empowering experience of having one bill defeated solely on my testimony against the most powerful lobby in the state, I drafted the Juvenile Rights Act, which was defeated after a fair hearing. The next year I was accepted at Rocky Mountain College, a small liberal arts college in Billings, based on my test scores. While the academics were interesting, I majored in massage and co-ed relations. I left there with the belief that I would return to college when life stopped offering so many more interesting learning opportunities outside the ivy walls. Indeed, I’ve taken classes at four colleges since then. Musical performance didn’t require a degree. I have played drums since I was 11. At 14, I hitchhiked to Chicago to participate in the Percussive Arts Society’s Day of Percussion. The next summer I went to Champaign-Urbana to follow through with related learning opportunities. It was there I met Sue Winking, now a public radio executive and good friend. Between hitchhiking over 100,000 miles around the USA, I eagerly explored the possibilities of percussive music, composing, collaborating and performing. By college, I had joined the progressive rock quartet, Max with TJ Hogan. Original music was the focal point of our communal experience. I married Kimberly K Kombol of Roundupand we lived together with half a dozen musicians. We found a patron in broadcasting who kept us alive while we refined our music. Max went through many changes and a few cities – Salt Lake, San Francisco, and Billings– before I split off to move to Los Angeles to pursue my career dreams. During my two years in L.A., I made dozens of recordings in fascinating studios; all based on speculation. None of the fine musicians I worked with are well known today, but I learned a lot. I paid bills by driving school buses and eventually teaching other drivers, while attending college courses during the slow mid-day. I became ordained and began performing weddings as a favor to friends. We escaped the L.A. vortex to discover Whidbey Island. Kim left me there, and I stayed for 21 years. On Whidbey I joined Foolproof, the ten member pit band of the eclectic theater troupe, Fools. I took part in two of their huge Langley extravaganzas, along with countless smaller shows. I became very involved in the alternative community, volunteering in the Co-op. With Laurie Davenport and her son, Leaf Dobson, I dreamed of building an efficient house, earning our keep cutting firewood and gardening. She went to nursing school, and I studied with her. During this time I made a parachute jump. I was a regular at the library. In 1984, the year my daughter was born, I was the Democratic nominee to represent the 10th district in the Washington House of Representatives. I got 48% of the votes against a well-funded, corrupt, 12-year incumbent. Although our campaign won more votes per dollar than did any other race in the state that year, I lost in a landslide. Retrospectively, I feel lucky to have avoided becoming a career politician. |
I worked in citizen politics for
the next four years. Beginning as
a door-to-door fundraiser for Puget Sound SANE, I became a member of
the
board of directors of the anti-nuclear peace group, along with Mike
Lowry,
who was between the U.S. House and the Governor’s mansion. When elected
to the board, I needed another job. I became the Executive Director of
the Freedom Fund, a local human rights group that sponsored tours by
former
CIA agents who spoke out against U.S. covert policies. Working with
Lotus
123 on an XT clone, I developed a series of spreadsheets to calculate
payroll
and taxes for a crew of commissioned fundraisers. We also did desktop
publishing
and managed a large database. The International March for Peace and Justice in Central America involved 350 people from 35 countries and went from Panama City to Mexico City. I joined in Managua and left from Guatemala City, learning a great deal in the three-week interim. I had some opportunities to practice my newly learned skills as an Emergency Medical Technician and immersion in a Spanish speaking culture. Along with ten others I was arrested for civil disobedience at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. We were internationally recognized prisoners of conscience, calling attention to problems that are now recognized by the government, but were then denied. I learned to be my own attorney, while joined with others who were represented. The judge refused to allow us to give a copy of the U.S. Constitution to the jury. Publicizing this fact won us 21 days in jail for trespass, in place of the usual 3-day sentence. Preparing to serve my time, I anticipated isolation. In my head grew the outline of the book I would write. I learned a great deal about the sociology of confinement and saw more TV than I had in years, but I didn’t get my book written in jail. Later, CIA-induced paranoia encouraged me to find a small, unfinished cabin in the alder woods of south Whidbey, where I could spend a lot of time with my daughter. I wrote and re-wrote a book about simple living. Although never published in its entirety, excerpts made it into magazines. A professor of marketing called for permission to use an article in his class on media. In pursuant conversations we considered co-authoring a book – Fear Sells. I was driven to create Counter Productions, a small non-profit producing anti-consumption advertisements in mixed media. For three years I had commuted by bicycle from Whidbey Island to Seattle’s University District. When I gave up that commute, I volunteered to organize a three-day series of alternative transportation seminars on the ferry in cooperation with the state Department of Transportation. Day one featured representatives of the local transit agencies focused on busses and vanpools. Day two had a speaker from the Washington Energy Office on telecommuting. Day three was my opportunity to promote bicycling. I supported the playwright Martha Furey as she performed her solo play about Georgia Gerber’s last days. I applied her elaborate latex make-up and ran the lights. Around the same time I performed with the power trio Piltdown Men before ten thousand motorcyclists in a three-day outdoor concert. In 1992 I flew into Harare, Zimbabwe and traveled overland toward Nairobi, Kenya. Events in the two months between forever altered me. In Lusaka, Zambia, I met the marvelous woman who is now my wife. Majori speaks dozens of languages, having traveled the world as a cultural ambassador. She is among the world’s experts on the traditional culture of Zambia. I could fill several books with all I’ve learned from her. Perhaps someday I will. I returned to the USA to learn that Piltdown Men’s exploratory recordings hadn’t excited any major contract offers. I declared bankruptcy from a tent in February, nursing a rotting tooth but faithfully calling my fiancé each week. After seven months of wrestling with INS paperwork, I borrowed her airfare from my ex-wife and finally we were wed. I worked as a cab driver for the next two years, gathering stories from a rogues’ gallery of customers. We formed Zambia Today! to sponsor the USA tour of Amayenge, an 18-member performance ensemble from the heart of Africa. My business plan was good, but I didn’t put enough time into the set-up phase. My communications skills fell short of the challenge. I lost my inheritance and gained an education. My job role at Boeing has centered on training. When I started with Materiel Division, I was mostly concerned with scheduling buyers for the onslaught of courses required to carry out corporate initiatives. At Bluestreak this emphasis expanded to include needs analysis, course development and delivery. As a side function of my work at Bluestreak, I became involved in numerous projects, including development of a database to track safety incidents and design of a system to discover the root cause of manufacturing errors. At one point I learned the job functions of an Office Assistant who supported two general supervisors, divided her job into two and trained her replacements. Perhaps my biggest venture involved assembling hardware and software and planning an effective approach for efficient kitting of plans for follow-on work. As the 767 Training Advisor, I found myself empowering individuals to become fully engaged in the learning opportunities that would make them better employees. Today I work with Commercial Aviation Services as part of a Human Resources team. I develop and deploy employee surveys to learn educational needs, then work with subject matter experts to refine course materials and teaching plans. I mine data for demographics as well as training completion reports and devise systems to flow precise information to the people who need it at appropriate frequencies. When I went to work for Boeing, my life calmed considerably. Corporate reorganization can be thrilling, but not truly life threatening. It was good to be involved in another aspect of flight, a lifelong interest. I enjoyed the security of a steady paycheck and a house in the suburbs. I truly enjoyed my job for seven years. Who knows? Maybe they'll call me back. Majo moved out in Sept '03, right after I got laid off. She says she's doing well on her own. If she's happy, so am I. Never tough to keep myself busy. I'm studying the Digital Arts at Henry Cogswell College in Everett, where I live. My focus is on video and web development. Keep an eye on this site to see how much I learn. Life as a full-time student leaves more room for social activism than working did. So I'm getting involed in all sorts of things. Please click here to see my card (self portrait), resume or headshots. |
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