John Michael Somero

I always wanted to fly since I was about 4 years old, and I went through the ranks of odd flying jobs (Woodland Watts charters/instruction; Yolo drop zone parachuting, etc.). After getting my aircraft mechanic's licenses and getting married, I moved east and lived on Cape Cod for a while, flying there, including flying a few celebs amongst whom was Jackie Onassis and her kids Johnnie and Caroline. Got a few corporate jobs flying light twins and a Learjet 24, and went into the concrete construction business when recessions hit and aviation got slow. I did add a commercial helicopter rating to my list then and used a helicopter to travel to different jobsites. I flew for American Eagle and Northwest Airlink Airlines out of Detroit and Chicago (instructing for them most of the time), and quit that to teach for Lufthansa (the German airline) in their ab initio program in Phoenix. Retired from there in 2006 and went to work a season in Alaska counting walruses for the government (Google "Pacific walrus survey 2006") and fighting fires out of Chester, CA that summer. I then moved to South Carolina chasing kids and grandkids, and took a job supervising pilots for a UPS feeder airline, with my territory ranging from Panama City, FL to Manteo, NC on the Outer Banks. UPS downsized the routes in 2009 and I got a call while vacationing in Israel that I had to move to the home base in VT or get laid off. I chose the latter. Next I volunteered to fly after the January 2010 Haiti earthquake and did 44 round trips into and out of Haiti over the next few months, based out of Venice, FL. My wife went to Port au Prince and helped with the orphans there, and accompanied some to the US on military C130's. After being "retired" for 3 years, I've gotten back into the concrete business with a large commercial contractor out of NC. We work all over the Southeast. Did that until Jan of 2020, then retired again. I got a call in August of 2020 from a company in CA to see if I'd run a warehouse 9 miles from my home. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and am still doing that today and loving it! Perfect job for my age and health, and close to home and pretty much come and go as I please as long as my office stuff is up to date. God is good!

I stumbled onto this site and read a post by Wally Summ responding to one by Richard Branscomb, about a car I bought from Richard. This triggered my joining, although I haven't been one to do much on these social pages except when I was in Israel and Haiti. One story I remember well is when I borrowed my Dad's 1961 Ford station wagon to come to a Wolves football game one night, and after the game, which we won, some disgruntled fans from the opposing team decided they wanted to fight in the parking lot. I was with either John Watson or Jim Wilson; not sure who that night but thinking it was John, who, when they came at our car from the right side, threw open the door as I stomped on the gas. A couple of them looked like bowling pins in the rear view mirror as we got out of there.