Jeff Rumsey

 

After graduating from West Seattle, I spent the next two years at Big Bend College in Moses Lake.  At the end of the second year, I earned my commercial pilot's license.  At that time, I had my sites set on either the military or the airlines, but after two years of school, I decided instead to go work on a fishing boat in Alaska to take a short break.  The time in Alaska allowed me to do some soul searching and to consider what I really wanted out of life.  What followed was marriage to a beautiful women and my return to school, earning a degree in Commercial and Technical Photography. 

Because of my love of flying and photography, I went to work for Boeing Flight Test as a Motion Picture Specialist. 
I liked working for Boeing because it allowed me to be on a team that tested all of the new airplanes while they were being certified for commercial use by the airlines.  (The stories I could tell!) 

I did take a two year break form Boeing and went to work for the Department of Defense in California as a Scientific Photographer in the Sea/Air photo unit.  My only claim to fame while I was there is that I supported the camera people involved with the filming of Top Gun.  I provided the camera pods that they used for the air to air filming. 
I returned to Boeing and left the company in 2002 after 20 years, and went back to school yet again, helping me decide what I wanted to do next.

I spent 10 months in school but then got a call from someone I knew in the Shoreline School District.  They needed a video production instructor for spring quarter in their two high schools.  Of course I had no experience with teaching, but I did raise four teenagers and two foster kids which, as I discovered, was pretty good training for being a high school teacher, and for some bizarre reason, I get along pretty well with teenagers.

After spring semester, I found a permanent position at Woodinville High School in the Northshore School District as the Department Head of Technology.  I developed a high school program for students who wanted to get college credits in Video Game Design, I wrote the foundations and made it official with OSPI.  Along with that program, I also taught Animation, Web Design, Desktop Publishing, and Video Production.

After 13 years of teaching, I retired in 2016.  My wife had retired the year before and we were ready to travel.  Our home base is Belfair where we have a beautiful home on the beach on Hood Canal.  We do a lot of volunteer work for the local senior center, but I always find time to fish, hike, and travel.  I guess I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up . . .

Posted: 5/8/19