Terral King
Maintenance Supervisor

If you've gotten this far, no doubt you are trying to figure out just who Terral King really is. I don't advertise this website, other than using the .com in my email address, so you are probably here for a reason and you want to know a little more about me. You will find my resume here too, although you might just have it already. A resume can tell a little about a person, but an interview will tell even more. Why don't you look at this site as a "virtual interview", even if it is a bit one sided. It might even answer some questions you can't ask, it might save you the phone call inviting me to talk to you in person, but most of all, I hope it will intrigue you enough to want to meet me.

Let's start with "About Terral". First off, I am no Spring Chicken. I am still on the underside of age 60 though, with quite a few years of work left ahead. Retirement is a concept I am not comfortable with simply because I am having too much fun working, right here and right now. I suppose I will have to retire at some time, but working gives me a tangible sense of purpose, and frankly I can't see myself ready to give that up until I have to. I graduated High School from Fort Stockton High School, Fort Stockton Texas in 1983. I was fortunate enough to have been working for a number of years growing up and had enough money saved along with some really great scholarships it allowed me to spend my Freshman year at Texas Tech University as a student only, studying Electrical Engineering. I went to work my Sophomore year, at United Parcel Service as a pre-load sorter. During my Junior year, the lure of a full time job driving a big brown package car at UPS proved to be too much, and I quit to begin a 15 year career as a driver, and the face of a company that prides itself on customer service.

In 2000, I moved my family to Muleshoe Tx, in preparation to buy a retail business. The deal closed in the summer of 2001, so I quit UPS to become a businessman. I ran a Radio Shack franchise, sold televisions, installed satellite systems, carried on my repair/upgrade service of personal computers, and ran a Rent-to-Own operation in a store down the street. Soon after I got started in all that, a local office supply company came up for sale, I bought it and moved it into my existing location. I averaged about 7 employees much of the time, and had day to day responsibility for payroll, budgets, and business planning. Things rocked on until 2007, when it became very obvious that the brick & mortar economy was beginning to suffer and there were hard times ahead. In order to provide for my family I "pulled the trigger" on a contingency plan formulated for just the occasion.

In February 2008, I was able to hire on with Xcel Energy at a semi-local power plant in Earth Texas. When I started at the plant, I began the process of shutting my retail operation down, finishing the process mid summer of 2008. As a Plant Operator, I learned about the world of power plant operations in a natural gas fired generation facility. Learning about the process exposed me to my first love, the every day application and use of electronics. The power plant was full of gadgets and gizmos that begged to be learned about. Immediately I knew where I wanted to be, and that was working with the instrumentation. In the spring of 2010 I got the chance to move to Amarillo Tx, to another gas fired facility into the Instrument shop. It was hands on, and applied theory and I had found my niche. In the fall of that year, the next door coal fired facility was in need of a Controls Technician, and I was tapped for the job. I moved from the applied electronics into the world of Distributed Control Systems, and Data Acquisition. It was the hardware and software that uses instrumentation information to make decisions on running the process. It is also the best job (in my opinion of course) to have in the entire company.

There is no end to the learning, there are always new procedures, new equipment, new repairs to old equipment, and most of all there is a heightened level of responsibility that is very comforting. I get to meet new people, be exposed to new ideas, and have even gotten to travel to places for business that I would never have gone otherwise.

I have been Invensys trained in Foxboro I/A "Introduction to Configuration", AIM* AT (historian hardware/software", and "Equipment Maintenance" I have been through vendor classes like ControlSoft's "Loop Tuning", and Emerson's "Model 500 Gas Chromatograph" and "Mon2000 Software". I enjoy learning whatever I can, and our company has a "Learning Management System" available through the company intranet, and during breaks I have availed myself of some great "extra" training in process, operations, and the Microsoft Office suite.

 

From there, I found myself working offshore for Shell Oil on the Perdido Spar, as an ET/CAO (Electronic Technician / Computer Assisted Operator). After a few years of that, more opportunities came my way to backfill for HSE, and finally a year as “Operations Maintenance Integrator”, test driving a new to offshore position for short term O&M planning.

 

That lead to an opportunity to move to staff as SE Lead, Safety & Environmental Lead, owning the safety process onboard the Olympus platform, as well as the waste stream disposal. In the 5 years I owned that position, I was able to backfill both Maintenance and Operations Supervisor roles for over half of my time onboard, even being an effective part of the “Asset of the Year” in 2022.

 

In 2024 a company reorganization provided me the opportunity to move up the ladder a step to Maintenance Supervisor back on the Perdido paltform, so there I went back to my original offshore home. Many faces had changed, but many of the familiar challenges remained. Tasked with maintenance oversight, including budgeting and schedule attainment, I grabbed the reins and have enjoyed every minute of it.

Perhaps the big question now. "Why is Terral looking for another job?" Well, let me answer that clearly. I am not looking for another job. I have the best job my company has to offer for someone like me. A great job, stable company, exciting work, and best of all I get to work in an exciting location with enough challenges to keep my interest and the right mix of people to help keep us all safe.

 

I don't need a job, I already have one.

My life has been an incredible adventure, I have had three careers in my short life and all of them have been incredible. My needs are met, my wants are mostly met, so it will take one whale of a great opportunity to pry me out of where I am at. If you are here looking at this though, you likely have an application from me in your hands and that means I think you HAVE that whale of an opportunity.

Let's talk!