Walt Greenstein

I went to work for Braniff International Airways in 1966 and spent 16 glorious years there. I started in Fleet Service at Dallas Love Field. I became a Cargo Serviceman in Miami for about a year, before transferring back to Love Field. Where I became a cargo supervisor. I became as customer service agent in Corpus Christi for about 9 months before transferring back to Love Field. I move into management about a month before we opened DFW. My last position was the Manager of Operations at DFW. I was laid off in February just before Braniff went filed for bankruptcy. I decided against going to work for another airline. I moved to Clearwater, Florida and managed a travel agency and work as a desk clerk at night at a beach hotel. I had more fun at the hotel and decided make that my next career. I became a hotel General Manager in less than 2 years. Three of us got together and decided to try our hand at hotel consulting. One of my partners got hurt in an accident and dropped out. The other one ran off to get married, and I went back to being a General Manager. My wife and I decided to resurrect the consulting company and off we went. We traveled the country from coast to coast. We got to see America first hand. We loved every minute. Then we got tired of all the traveling. My wife suggested we try self storage management. We were at Lake Tahoe at the time. We spent the next 6 years managing self storage facilities in Nevada. We decided to retire in February of this year and returned to our mobile home. That 'retirement' didn't last lost. We got bored, so off we went doing another hotel consulting project in Texas. That project is almost complete. Maybe we will try retirement again, or maybe will be off on another consulting adventure!

In 2014, once again we tried to semi-retire, and once again it didn't work. I love my beach, but how many beach walks can you take in a day? A gentleman asked us to take a look at his storage facility in Sanford, Florida and get back to him about what was wrong. We spent 2 days looking at the facility and the surrounding area. We gave him a detailed report. He immediately asked us to take over the management. We laughed at him. We told him he needed to start himself cleaning the place before we could take him seriously. He did, but we still didn't want to work but a few days a week. He had owned the facility for 2 years and the occupancy was always 62-64 percent. Finally he presented it as a challenge. My wife and I both love challenges, so we agreed to take over management. The deal was for 6 months. We went 10 % in occupancy. We agreed to stay another 3 months and the occupancy went up another 11%. We have agreed to stay until the end of 2105. It possible we may stay on until May of 2016. One of these we will retire again, at least semi-retire, I think! We may even do some traveling to Central America. As long as we remain healthy, you never know what our next adventure might be!

Tommy Downing, Judy Vinson, Mary Ann Tupin and myself put something to represent of our past, present, and future in an Ovaltin jar, then sealed it in wax, and buried it along a creek bank at Turtle Creek. Have to wonder if anybody ever found that jar!