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I was born in Ontario and moved to Calgary at a young age. There I gained a love of the outdoors and the mountains. After high school and a couple of years swinging a hammer, I decided forestry would be the ticket and went to the U of A. When summer came around I attended an AFS job fair, and put in for fire fighting. When asked where I wanted to go, I said anywhere there were fires, so it was off to Fort McMurray and one of the busiest fire seasons they ever had. I had been bitten by the ‘fire bug’. The next year, 1982, I became the 2IC of the crew, which had become a bigger, regional crew with a Bell 205, and again a record fire year. 1983 saw the formation of the Provincial Helitack Program (2 rappel, 7 conventional crews) and I became crew leader for a conventional crew. In 1984 I made the switch to rappel as the program expanded to 4 rappel crews. I went back to 2IC to get the rappel experience. It was a very slow year. In 1985 I became a spotter of my own crew again and at the end of the season was exported to Salmon Arm BC. We worked under Alberta for a couple of weeks and then BC picked us up as a crew for a few more weeks to end the season.
During the winters, when not at university, I did some contract timber cruising around Nordegg, an Aspen Cull Study in Whitecourt, and was a Forest Worker for MoDo Skogen in Robertsfors, Sweden doing thinning and falling. I also traveled to Australia and New Zealand just for fun.
In 1990 I decided to move on from fire and forestry, and obtained an Avionics Engineering Technology diploma from SAIT. On completion I went to Bristol Aerospace in Winnipeg where I worked on the CF-5 fighter avionics upgrades from 1990 to 1992. I then moved to Paramax Systems of Winnipeg where I worked on the original EH101 New Shipborne Helicopter and the computer unit for the USN S-3 aircraft. After the helicopter project was cancelled and the company fell apart, I went to Hughes Aircraft in Richmond BC to work on air traffic control systems. In 1995, I returned to Calgary to work at Computing Devices Canada, on the Iris radio system for the Canadian Army as a reliability specialist doing equipment failure predictions and analysis, and reliability testing. This led to work as a systems engineer on a USMC radio system where I worked on the cable designs and shipment logistics. Once that project was finished I went to Novatel GPS to work as a reliability engineer in the quality department. After a year, CDC called and asked if I wanted to return to work on landmine detection. For the next 3 years I worked as a system engineer on a 3 vehicle robotic system and helped in equipment design and selection, interconnection, and subcontractor management. Once the engineering was finished, I became the Field Service Representative for the product where I taught the troops, provided technical support and traveled into theatre to support the equipment. Over 3 years, I spent almost 9 months in Kabul and Kandahar on 6 separate trips. For my efforts the Canadian Army awarded me the General Service Medal. I will miss the good times with the army and the great people who serve in it.
As I walked through the minefields in Afghanistan, I also thought of all the time away and my family growing up without me, so I started to ponder how I could combine my engineering experience and my years of fire fighting into a different exciting career. An email from Greg Baxter changed it all, and now I’m in Hinton as the new railroad program wildfire researcher. I hope that I will bring some new light to the research and create new friendships along the way. The future looks bright!!
Phone: (780) 865-6978
California/San Dimas Technology and Development Center Trip Report (PDF) 11/19/2008
Researcher - Jim Thomasson 3/6/2007