Gary Zerbest:  

was hired as a line cook for the Oasis Bar & Grill, which was the resort's central restaurant located on the center island of the many pools that surrounded it. I also cooked in several of the other restaurants within the resort, and also cooked numerous times for banquets, and the employee cafeteria. As a cook working in a 5 diamond resort (AAA rated), I learned so much and was spoiled with access to the most finest ingredients and foods. Everything had to be prepared to extravagant perfection. In April of 1993, I enlisted in the US Army. The economy was pretty bad at the time, and finding work was nearly impossible. During Basic Training, I had just a couple weeks to go when I developed stress fractures in both heels and placed on crutches. Since I had all requirements completed except one, and that was the final Physical Fitness test. Rather than wait the rest of the cycle recovering and repeating all of Basic Training again in the next cycle, I opted to do the final PT test after only 2 weeks of healing time. The push ups and sit ups were not a problem for my heels, but it was the 2 mile timed run that I'll never forget. Each time each heel hit the pavement was just an excruciating blast of pain. My military occupational specialty (MOS) was as a 68H10 (Aircraft Pneudraulics Repairer). My MOS has since been recoded as 15, 16, 17, or 18 series now. After completing Basic Training, I went to Sheppard Air Force Base (Wichita Falls, TX) for Advanced Individual Training (Detached from Ft. Sill, OK). After the 11 weeks of training, there was an additional 1 week for the 3 of us that were from the Army and not the Air Force. I graduated as an Honor Graduate, and received a Certificate of Achievement for it. The same 3 persons (myself included) seemed to stay together throughout the military years. We attended Basic Training together, we went to the same AIT training together, we all 3 went to Korea as a first duty station (although all 3 were stationed at different locations, we still met up with each other occasionally), we all 3 attended X-ray 1 (X1) Apache Advanced Maintenance Course together, and it wasn't until we got our first duty assignments in CONUS (Continental United States), that we got a little split up. Two of us went to Ft. Campbell (101st Airborne {Air Assault}), and the other got stationed in the Army's other premier Airborne unit at Ft. Bragg, NC (82nd Airborne). Of course, the 3 of us all had the same MOS too I might add. I was the Distinguished Graduate at that X1 Apache Advanced Maintenance Course, and received another Certificate of Achievement. I was I guess the lucky one of the three of us, because I was always assigned to an AVIM (Aviation Intermediate Maintenance) level unit. At the intermediate level of maintenance you work on components or on the aircraft, whereas if you were assigned to a AVUM (Aviation Unit Maintenance) level unit, you didn't do repair work except to remove and replace parts on the aircraft. Only AVIM or DEPOT (Corpus Christi) level units were authorized to repair components and advanced on-aircraft maintenance tasks. The AVIM units I was assigned to, both had authorizations to conduct DEPOT level maintenance so that we could do even the highest level of repair work. Since Corpus Christi, TX is the only Army Aviation DEPOT level base, acquiring authorization to do higher level repairs wasn't very difficult, considering the time and costs saved. Upon completing the NCO Academy/Primary Leadership Development Course, my MOS became 68H20X1 (The 10 was for grade Specialist/E-4 and below; 20 meant {Non-Commissioned Officer} NCO, SGT/E-5. The X1 was the additional skill identifier for completion of the X-ray 1 Apache Advanced Maintenance Course. And the 68H is still Aircraft Pneudraulics Repairer. Upon leaving the service due to 2 bad knees, I came back home to Colorado and began Vocational Rehab Training compliments of Veteran's Administration. I attended Parks College (Thornton, CO) and graduated Magna Cum Laude with an Associates Degree in Network Administration. I continued Vocational Rehab Training to obtain my second degree at Colorado Christian University. Again, I graduated Magna Cum Laude, with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Information Systems Management. My Information Technology days were all spent working for the same company 14 years (PDC). I worked various departments over the years, but my main tool was professional mapping software. All things GIS (Geographic Information Systems), Geospatial (GIS and beyond), GPS (Global Positioning System) and geographic boundaries were my mainstays. Of course, I am a die-hard Denver Bronco fan since arriving in Colorado back about 1978-1979. I was a Dallas Cowboys fan up through Superbowl XII (Denver's 1st Superbowl appearance vs. Dallas), but right after that pops decided to move to Colorado to finish his enlistment and retire here. I'm also a die-hard Pittsburgh Penguins fan. Denver used to have an NHL team that was the original Colorado Rockies (Now New Jersey Devils - I say "original" because now we have a MLB team called the Colorado Rockies), and I enjoyed going to the games until the team moved to New Jersey. Being an NHL Hockey fan, I adopted the Penguins as my new favorite team. Watching the great Mario Lemieux with Jaromir Jagr, Kevin Stevens, Ronnie Francis was just always exciting. I still was a great fan even through the lean years, before the arrival of the new greats like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Chris Letang and others.".