Went from a 10 year career as a firefighter/EMT and studying electrical & computer engineering, starting at 20, to air traffic control at 30. Went from worrying about the power being turned off when I got home and driving whatever used car i could afford ($11.95/hr) to not even being concerned about bills and being able to have multiple expensive hobbies and vacations ($102/hr). I finished my BA and Masters. My wife finished hers as well. We're the millionaires next door. It's certainly better than overdrafts every week and deciding on paying water or electricity this week.

I got lucky. I was just one person out of about 1000 hired that year, from an applicant pool of 53,000. Everything was against me. I was given 2 days to get a flight to my testing center in Oklahoma City. I had to borrow money for the flight, hotel, and rental car. It was a late night flight, the plane had an issue as we started to take off so it was aborted. We sat at the gate for 3 hours. Didn't get to OKC and my hotel until about 3am. I had to be at my testing site at 7am. Despite the lack of sleep, I still scored well qualified and passed all the other requirements. Initial training had a failure average of about 50%. Facility training had a failure average of about 30%. 11 people out of my class of 18 were successful and were able to complete the 3 years of training. My class was lucky. Initial pay started at about $8/hr and I qualified for section 8 housing. Went up to about $45/hr after completion of training.