Got into machining quite by accident, living in the north all jr. and sr. high schools had shop class back in the day. Took shop in 7th grade, half year metal, half year wood, HATED metal shop. From 8th grade on took art class instead. My dad worked for Govt. Printing Office in DC so I thought I might get into printing so took print shop last two years high school. Affirmative Action poo pooed getting a govt. job so right out of school got job at small print shop and didn't like it.
Did other things for a few years, lumber yard hand, brick helper, then got into electronics assembly at a defense plant in MD and did wiring/cable harnesses for AWACs planes and Navy Destroyers, then some satellite stuff and finally medical equipment, kidney dialysis machines and blood centrifuges.
Wasn't making much money after several years at that but while there it was the early days of water based machine coolants and the machine shop there switched all their equipment to the new stuff. About a dozen guys, proved to be allergic to it and symptoms ran from a mild rash to open sores.
The guys would have to take temp disability to get cleared up, come back and within a few days would break out again. Some they managed to clean out their machines and switch back to soluble oil, some they offered jobs at a sister company a few miles away and some went elsewhere. At any rate it opened opportunities for new hires and apprentices.
To come in as a beginning apprentice from wiring was a lateral pay move and it gave me opportunity to make bike parts on the side.
Finished my apprenticeship and company started to downsize so I moved south, went to work for company that did industrial specialty welding, remote welding systems for hazardous environments, Nuclear plants, boilers and pressure vessels etc. While there I attracted the interest of the Eng. manager who was impressed by my ability to design fixturing/work holding and understanding of machining so pulled me into engineering to help design and build remote operated machining tools to support the welding jobs. Kept my hand in making chips though.
Now I'm designing and building automated testing systems for a large aftermarket manufacturer of heavy truck parts, mostly oil, fuel and water pumps.
Not at all where I thought I'd end up.