The new job was a chance to get back closer to family, Kitchens said. "I wouldn't have qualified to get the job here at Joe Wheeler had I not worked up there first," Kitchens said. He said it was a good experience and he was grateful for his time there. Kitchens, who now lives in Decatur, said Alaska was a beautiful place to live but the winters are incredibly hard compared to Alabama. "The service area up there was 100 miles long in two different directions, so the population density is a lot different than it is here," Kitchens said. In Alaska, Kitchen's utility company served between 35,000 and 36,000 customers. Joe Wheeler EMC serves about 43,000 customers and has 4,600 miles of power lines in unincorporated areas of Morgan and Lawrence counties. "Served as their general manager for a couple of years before the opportunity opened up here in Alabama." "After several different job changes and stuff, I ended up getting a job with a co-op in Fairbanks, Alaska," Kitchens said. Kitchens started working for a small oil and gas company called Warrior Drilling & Engineering in Tuscaloosa. He was with Exxon for a few years before having the opportunity to move to Alabama. He alternated semesters working and attending classes.Īfter college, Kitchens started working for Exxon (now Exxon Mobile) as an accountant in Houston. Kitchens went on to Mississippi State University where he received a bachelor's degree in accounting while participating in the college's cooperative education program. "And the schools I was getting offers from didn't have an accounting degree program, and that's what I was interested in majoring in." I'm not a huge man so the potential to play beyond the next couple of years wasn't there," he said. "By the second year in school I realized. Kitchens said he had a couple of opportunities to continue playing football after East Mississippi but decided against it. It's definitely a lot of work involved, but I enjoyed it." "People don't realize when they watch, especially in the big programs like (University of) Alabama and Auburn (University), when they watch it on television on Saturday just how much work goes into being a college football player year-round. "A lot of hard work goes into it," Kitchens said. He was raised in Mississippi and received a scholarship to East Mississippi Junior College (now known as East Mississippi Community College) where he was an offensive lineman for the football team. Kitchens, 69, was hired in September 2001 and his last day with the cooperative was Feb.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |