06/15/05 New career

New Career Some people take disappointment and turn it into a new career. I'm Jeff Keane. I'll tell you about one of those people in a minute. Mike Obuchowski served his country in the U.S. Air Force but volunteered back into service after that horrible day in New York City on September 11th. After this tour of duty was over Mike returned to his Post Falls, Idaho home to resume his civilian job as manager of Agilent Technologies. Only trouble was, Mike's job wasn't there and neither was the company as they had relocated in Malaysia. Mike didn't care to move to Malaysia so his next step was enrolling in a worker re-training program sponsored by the State of Idaho. Mike signed up for the John Lyons program to become a professional horse trainer. A mustang purchased for him by some buddies while he was still in the Air Force helped lead Mike into the horse-training field. After completing the John Lyons School, Mike made some right decisions just like he did after 911 and through a 4H tack swap booth met Susan Rae, the coordinator for Ride the West expo held in Spokane, Washington. That meeting with Susan led to a series of mini clinics at the expo plus a training session with a three-year-old filly that was featured online. The expo work and online updates has brought Mike more work from colt training and working with problem horses to training clinics with horses and owners. I tried to contract Mike to personally thank him for his Air Force service and wish him good luck in his new career, but I couldn't reach him. I'll bet he was working at his job that started with a disappointment. I'm Jeff Keane. Capital Press 6/3/05