https://www.davidrozawrites.com/new-gallery daily 0.75 2019-06-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1559441412726-ZOYJDXKTN9FK1MJ61ZRK/welding1.jpg Hancock County High-Schoolers Train For Lucrative Welding Careers - Hancock County High-Schoolers Train For Lucrative Welding Careers Bucksport, ME - Over the past 18 years, Joel Pelletier (not pictured) has trained Bucksport high school students in welding, a trade that is both lucrative and in high demand. Median wages starting out are between $35,000 and $45,000, but wages go way up as welders accrue experience and certifications. Developing those skills gives Bucksport grads an edge for life. Full story here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1559441412726-ZOYJDXKTN9FK1MJ61ZRK/welding1.jpg Hancock County High-Schoolers Train For Lucrative Welding Careers - Hancock County High-Schoolers Train For Lucrative Welding Careers Bucksport, ME - Over the past 18 years, Joel Pelletier (not pictured) has trained Bucksport high school students in welding, a trade that is both lucrative and in high demand. Median wages starting out are between $35,000 and $45,000, but wages go way up as welders accrue experience and certifications. Developing those skills gives Bucksport grads an edge for life. Full story here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1559440540673-43MYAAB7QHZ06H18233O/welding2.jpg Hancock County High-Schoolers Train For Lucrative Welding Careers Many people might think handling a device that emits electrical arcs hot enough to melt metal would be stressful. But the welding students find calm within the total focus required for a good, safe weld. “Nothing else matters when I’m welding,” said Ethan Kane, a junior. “It’s an awesome feeling; it really calms me down.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1559440554071-V7MO7OW1DWLJW4RG35WE/welding3.jpg Hancock County High-Schoolers Train For Lucrative Welding Careers After graduating Pelletier’s program, many students go on to study at Eastern Maine Community College’s two-year welding program, which one former student said is known in the industry as the best college for welding on the East Coast. “We had people in their forties from Florida come up just to take that schooling,” he said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560278474592-X7A8Z3ZCZEOMV8DOKC1M/welding6.jpg Hancock County High-Schoolers Train For Lucrative Welding Careers Pelletier’s welding classes are structured to prepare students for certification exams, where they must demonstrate a steady hand and precise aim. In his first year of welding, Ellsworth junior Ethan Kane has already earned four certifications. He plans to start working towards more advanced exams next year. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1559440591945-LKF2O9R841DH5E80YRSB/welding5.jpg Hancock County High-Schoolers Train For Lucrative Welding Careers Pelletier (not pictured) said he strives to help his students build a comfortable future for themselves. “The more I train them, the less I have to worry about when they go home if they’re going to be able to feed their families,” he said. “That’s my goal.” https://www.davidrozawrites.com/new-gallery-1 daily 0.75 2019-06-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560277261684-IZWL6NXA56QEGD7MUXN5/mud+run8.jpg Guts And Automotive Skill and Ingenuity Reign At Mud Runs - Guts and Gearheads Reign at Mud Runs Ellsworth, ME - Every summer in rural Maine, dozens of families haul makeshift monster trucks to a stretch of mud on the outskirts of Ellsworth. They don their helmets, put the pedal to the metal, and cross their fingers that the trucks will make it out the other side faster than anyone else can--hopefully without breaking anything first. Full story here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560277261684-IZWL6NXA56QEGD7MUXN5/mud+run8.jpg Guts And Automotive Skill and Ingenuity Reign At Mud Runs - Guts and Gearheads Reign at Mud Runs Ellsworth, ME - Every summer in rural Maine, dozens of families haul makeshift monster trucks to a stretch of mud on the outskirts of Ellsworth. They don their helmets, put the pedal to the metal, and cross their fingers that the trucks will make it out the other side faster than anyone else can--hopefully without breaking anything first. Full story here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560277314353-3CDBRS0LBXEQGWQ6SM56/mud+run5.jpg Guts And Automotive Skill and Ingenuity Reign At Mud Runs “The fun part for me is seeing what we can fix after it breaks,” said Stephen Ward, a mechanic by trade. On his first run of the year, he broke the transmission right off the motor in his truck, “Mud ’Mater.” Transmissions are so heavy they are usually installed with a jack, but he made do with what he had on hand. “I put it back together with some ratchet straps in time for one of the last runs of the day,” he said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560277331671-AK6QWEUJUUIOR32ME2J2/mud+run12.jpg Guts And Automotive Skill and Ingenuity Reign At Mud Runs Usually the mud runners fix the trucks, but in Roger Gilley’s case, Northern Outlaw helped fix him. After a snowmobile accident where Gilley broke both his wrists, he helped himself heal by putting the truck together. “Building Northern Outlaw was a physical therapy,” he said. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560277351621-6CP25HZX6YTR25VVNPUY/mud+run9.jpg Guts And Automotive Skill and Ingenuity Reign At Mud Runs Steve Rowley has sunk $30,000 into the 9-­foot, 10­-inch tall “Double Trouble,” which he co-­owns with Craig Hamilton. Other mud runners scrounge junkyards and used cars for any parts they can find. Older parts from before the 1990s are generally more reliable in mud pit conditions, runners say, but the high demand for them makes them hard to find. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560277395231-A8CSSPQVPVFMMMMPXCBU/mud+run1+%281%29.jpg Guts And Automotive Skill and Ingenuity Reign At Mud Runs The air at a mud run smells of smoke, gasoline and fried food as hundreds of dusty jean­clad and work­booted Mainers take turns racing their trucks, which sport names like Hawt Mess, The Antagonizer, Green Bean, and Swampy. “As soon as you put the gas pedal to the floor, the nerves are gone,” Ward said. “It’s all concentration after that.” https://www.davidrozawrites.com/new-gallery-3 daily 0.75 2019-06-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560278058060-ZIZ3FW3NHNT7381CW2Y0/pressman5.jpg Pressman - After 27 Years, American Pressman Steps Down From Full-Time Work In an age where print newspapers are dwindling, Roger Hoffmann, the lead pressman of The Ellsworth American retired after a 27 year career bringing the paper into tangible reality. The job is immensely challenging, as the smallest mistake will be replicated tens of thousands of times by the presses, and cost the company valuable ink and paper. Full story here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560278058060-ZIZ3FW3NHNT7381CW2Y0/pressman5.jpg Pressman - After 27 Years, American Pressman Steps Down From Full-Time Work In an age where print newspapers are dwindling, Roger Hoffmann, the lead pressman of The Ellsworth American retired after a 27 year career bringing the paper into tangible reality. The job is immensely challenging, as the smallest mistake will be replicated tens of thousands of times by the presses, and cost the company valuable ink and paper. Full story here. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560278067232-15VP0JGH5WJ82EZAKC2M/pressman6.jpg Pressman Before joining the American, Hoffmann worked on a shipboard guided missile system in the Navy, and then as a grocery store manager in Maine. But it was his mechanical aptitude as an expert bicycle repairman that caught the eye of the newspaper’s publisher. Since the American’s is the only press in the county, it prints several other local papers too. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560278080623-G0R0Z7KP56U7VX2N0IIF/pressman4.jpg Pressman Running the press is no easy task. The ink is guided onto the page by a stencil that is shaped to convey all the week’s news. However, if the plates are not aligned, or if the rolls of paper are too tense, the images, ads and text will be illegible. Lining everything up requires minute adjustments throughout the process. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560278089758-UAO1OYWWS82Q4YUVTP68/pressman3.jpg Pressman Hoffmann said it takes a week of vacation to get his hands clean. The pressman’s manager said ads are more challenging to print these days, because young graphic designers who may “have never even held a newspaper,” create complicated images that are tough to execute on a press. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1560278147567-J2NKFIMXQL0R1QXENZXN/pressman1.jpg Pressman With decades of experience, Hoffmann is something of a press whisperer. Thing is, the taciturn 70-year-old sometimes has trouble passing on his knowledge to the younger pressmen. “That’s all stuff in his head that we have to somehow get out of there,” his manager said. “It’s not something that can be learned in a short amount of time.” https://www.davidrozawrites.com/red-flag-231 daily 0.75 2024-12-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1735600671110-RFQC2NQ3QGM29KFUFKDY/red+flag+2.jpg Red Flag 23-1 - Red Flag 23-1 Combat Search and Rescue Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. — While reporting on a feature story about the future of Air Force combat search and rescue, I rode aboard an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter as its crew and attached Pararescue Jumpers practiced picking up a downed pilot during the large-scale exercise Red Flag 23-1 in February, 2023. The experience proved vital for the feature because it gave me a first-hand view of what search and rescue crews risk to accomplish their dangerous mission. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1735600671110-RFQC2NQ3QGM29KFUFKDY/red+flag+2.jpg Red Flag 23-1 - Red Flag 23-1 Combat Search and Rescue Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. — While reporting on a feature story about the future of Air Force combat search and rescue, I rode aboard an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter as its crew and attached Pararescue Jumpers practiced picking up a downed pilot during the large-scale exercise Red Flag 23-1 in February, 2023. The experience proved vital for the feature because it gave me a first-hand view of what search and rescue crews risk to accomplish their dangerous mission. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1735600687053-BBO7O0OVD08VKRHOLCH5/red+flag+5.jpg Red Flag 23-1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1735600673865-MTTTDV0BLL089X4KB6FW/red+flag+1.jpg Red Flag 23-1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1735600683583-IV0PLOHAC7XWMD6ZB7EX/red+flag+4.jpg Red Flag 23-1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1735600682658-19NBAQ1Q7LBXB5193AGR/red+flag+3.jpg Red Flag 23-1 https://www.davidrozawrites.com/new-cover-page daily 1.0 2019-06-02 https://www.davidrozawrites.com/about daily 0.75 2025-09-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1584826193071-KWZPBRI6K572KFE8QA3A/IMG_6491.jpg About https://www.davidrozawrites.com/new-page daily 0.75 2025-09-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c8410ae11f784694a12859d/1555623141952-67LXRENWXG9HSWCK7UZB/contact+me2.jpg Contact https://www.davidrozawrites.com/military-1 daily 0.75 2025-12-13 https://www.davidrozawrites.com/air-space-forces-magazine daily 0.75 2025-12-13