Terral King
Controls Technician
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 50 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. What should have been 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 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. I managed to get it wound down by 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.
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 between two power plants that are literally full of really great people. I don't need a job, I already have one.
What I don't have, is opportunity to see the rest of the world. Or at least a bunch of the U.S., and there is an incredible amount of the country to visit, people to meet, things to learn, and places to see. The job I have now will let me make enough money to retire, it will insure my family, feed/clothe/house us, and I have every confidence that it will be there for my until I make the decision to retire. I will spend most of my time in an office though, and frankly I am much happier getting my hands dirty, meeting new people, and seeing new places. So poking around looking at other opportunities has shown me there are places that can give me the security I have now, with the possibilities I would like. There are tradeoffs I know, like working shift work, or being on call, or traveling, or relocating. Under pressure while learning new processes, procedures, and equipment. Meeting new people, making new friends, well maybe not all of it is a "tradeoff" after all. My eyes have been opened to a whole new world, and I want to grab more of it, that's all.
My life has been an incredible adventure, I have had three careers in my short life and all of them have been incredible. I don't think I will change careers again though, I feel at home with process control, but if other companies have a place for me that can give me a bigger slice of the world, I want to talk with them. 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!
Let's start with "About Terral". First off, I am no Spring Chicken. I am still on the underside of age 50 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. What should have been 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 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. I managed to get it wound down by 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.
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 between two power plants that are literally full of really great people. I don't need a job, I already have one.
What I don't have, is opportunity to see the rest of the world. Or at least a bunch of the U.S., and there is an incredible amount of the country to visit, people to meet, things to learn, and places to see. The job I have now will let me make enough money to retire, it will insure my family, feed/clothe/house us, and I have every confidence that it will be there for my until I make the decision to retire. I will spend most of my time in an office though, and frankly I am much happier getting my hands dirty, meeting new people, and seeing new places. So poking around looking at other opportunities has shown me there are places that can give me the security I have now, with the possibilities I would like. There are tradeoffs I know, like working shift work, or being on call, or traveling, or relocating. Under pressure while learning new processes, procedures, and equipment. Meeting new people, making new friends, well maybe not all of it is a "tradeoff" after all. My eyes have been opened to a whole new world, and I want to grab more of it, that's all.
My life has been an incredible adventure, I have had three careers in my short life and all of them have been incredible. I don't think I will change careers again though, I feel at home with process control, but if other companies have a place for me that can give me a bigger slice of the world, I want to talk with them. 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!