Factotum:  a person having many diverse activities or responsibilities
born: January 31, 1947

Work History

At the age of 15 I got a job as an auto mechanic at Ray's Garage (now defunct) in Bloomington, MN.
I overhauled engines and transmissions (standard and automatic).
I also did some auto body repair and painting.
At age 22 I got a job at Tel-E-Lect, Bloomington, MN (now Terex) as a truck painter.
There was an opening in the machine shop for a radial drill press operator which I was awarded.
Over the next 5 years at Tel-E-Lect I ran every machine in their machine shop
(lathes - horizontal and vertical, mills - horizontal and vertical, grinders - cylindrical and surface and tool & cutter).
This led to getting a job at Metro Machine, Bloomington, MN where I continued my skills as machinist.
After that I spent 9 years at J&E Manufacturing, Lakeville, MN as a tool & die maker and press room foreman.
The next 23 years were spent at Northwest Airlines.
4 years in the machine shop.
Then 13 years as an FAA licensed aircraft powerplant mechanic in their engine shop, fuel metering shop, hydraulics shop.
I worked the last 6 years at NWA in the jet engine test cell where, after engines are overhauled or repaired in the shop,
they are run to assure engine performance meets requirements before hanging on wing.
After 2 years in the test cell I became caretaker of all the equipment used to test the engines including the
data acquisition system in the 747/757/DC10 engine test cell.
This system was comprised of a Hewlett Packard UNIX server being fed engine parameter information from an HP LynxOS VXI.
In 2003 Northwest management asked me if I could resurrect the DC9/727 engine test cell which was built in 1965.
In recent years, had been used only for simple engine runs like leak checks or generator tests.
I replace all wiring in the cell and installed a Microsoft Windows based data acquisition system
which was entirely designed, programmed and built by myself with the aid of no one.
This system used an IDEC PLC with IDEC DC input, Relay output, analog input,
and MOD-MUX inputs via an IDEC MODBUS RS232 communication gateway.
In 2005, at age 58, I retired from NWA and now contract myself out to various companies including NWA through my company Chase, Inc.
In addition to the above, my wife and I started Hollywood Images (an entertainment agency) in 1990
and Troll City (online collectible sales) in 1995 both of which are subsidiaries of Chase, Inc.

Skills

My main expertise is in gleaning data from huge databases.
I can produce reports which cannot be done with SQL.
Very useful for audits to find subtle discrepancies in data that may indicate unethical behavior.
Whatever you can conceive I can do.
You can do as little as scribble on scratch paper how you want report to look.
I will create macros which allow your employees to produce reports with the click of a button.
Output in Word, Excel, PowerPoint or any other format the user may desire.
The result will be reports that are consistent in appearance and accuracy.

Excellent grasp of the English language, grammar and composition
I have an innate ability to be competent with software at first use

(all of the following I have done professionally)
Visual Basic programming
PLC Ladder programming
Windows Scripting
HTML programming
Computer hardware - installation and repair
Too much software to list - ask me if I have expertise in your desired area
Auto Engine overhaul
Automatic & Manual Transmission Overhaul
Horizontal Mill
Vertical Mill
Horizontal Lathe
Vertical Lathe
Tool & Cutter Grinder
Surface Grinder
Cylindrical Grinder
Blanchard Grinder
CNC Machining Center
Punch Press
Sheet Metal Brake
Jet Engine Overhaul
Jet Engine Testing
Aircraft Sheet Metal
Oscilloscopes
Electrical system debugging and maintenance
Hydraulic system maintenance
Photographer
Audio Engineer
Artist (Oil & Airbrush)

Education

Graduate of Bloomington High School 1965.
I attended the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology 1965 through 1967.
I determined I had enough self-discipline to educate myself in any endeavor I wanted to pursue
(As you can see from my work history I have done so.

Licenses

FAA certified mechanic
FCC Radiotelephone Operators License General Class

Personal Facts

• My first responsibility is to my family.
  If there is any conflict with my time family will always win out.

• Renee is my wife of 41 years. (Whom I love dearly and I wish to state that publicly)
  I have 5 daughters, 4 grandsons and 8 granddaughters.
  I enjoy them all.  How lucky I am!

• I volunteer much of my spare time to Army Family Readiness.

• I am honest to a fault.
  If given too much change by a cashier I will return it.
  If I see someone drop money I will pick it up and chase them down to return it.
  I have an automatic time log to keep track of my time for billing.
  When I invoice someone it is for only time spent working on their project with no personal breaks included.

• When I am aware of the plight of another human I have an obligation to help if it is within my means to do so.

• I use no addictive chemicals.
  I smoked from age 18 to age 42.
  I have gotten drunk twice in my life. (both before age 22).
  I have had no alcoholic beverage since 1999.
  I won't even take a pain killer.
  (Since a near death experience 1999 I won't allow my cognitive abilities to be diminished in any way.)

• I live by this philosophy:
  Never stop learning!
  I have something to learn from everyone I meet.
  Physically I am limited only by what my body will allow me to do. (Which as I get older the limits increase)
  Mentally I am limited by my knowledge. (Which as I get older the limits decrease)

John Orrin Chase