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| The Basics | Dream jobs -- and how to get one
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Pitcher for Barry Bonds. Lego artist. Jeweler to the stars. What does it take to land a job that doesnt feel like work? Here are 9 who did it, plus a guide to follow your own fantasy.
By Kiplinger
Continued from Page 1
Quick links to dream jobs:
John Yandle, batting-practice pitcher for the San Francisco Giants
Joe Garden, staff writer for the humor magazine The Onion
Carol Brodie, who provides Harry Winston diamonds for the stars
Scott Kelliher, hitting the road with his band L.P.
Dan Bennett, master builder at Legoland theme park
Kurt Franz, practicing medicine at Yellowstone National Park
Frank Tursi, patrolling the coastal waters of North Carolina
David Gold, tornado-chaser and tour guide for the brave
Harriet Siew, tester, sampler and editor of recipes for The Food Network
A musical interlude
Scott Kelliher thought he had found his dream job two years ago. A bass guitarist since seventh grade, Kelliher was hired as a marketing representative for Elias Arts, a company that produces music for commercials. For Kelliher, it was a great combination: He could earn a full-time paycheck in a field he loved and still perform with several New York City bands at night and on weekends. He thrived in his day job and worked his way up to national manager of client relations.
Then things got even better. L.P., one of the rock bands hed been playing with, started to take off, booking shows outside the New York City area. At first Kelliher crammed the longer tours into his already busy schedule, using most of his vacation time to play with the band. He often drove back from shows in the middle of the night to make it to work the next morning.
But as the band built a bigger name, Kelliher began socking away money and streamlining his expenses so that he could afford to play with L.P. full time if the opportunity arose. About a year ago, he took the plunge and left Elias -- and his regular paycheck -- to tour the country as a full-time musician.
Now, he says, "every hour of the day is focused on one thing -- getting there on time, getting ready and doing the show." He spends long nights of endless driving in a crowded van with no heat. "Theres very little glamour. Were always trying to get some sleep." Exhausting, yes, but its also "completely exhilarating," says Kelliher. "You get to express your creativity, and meeting the people is awesome."
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So far the rewards are more psychic than financial. Kelliher is still living off his savings, supplemented by "helpful little nuggets," such as consulting jobs in marketing, when hes not touring. He has also learned to "spend more intelligently -- taking the subway instead of cabs, for example. But because he was financially prepared to make his big move, he has managed to hang on to his unusually spacious apartment in New Yorks East Village.
Kelliher received a small advance of several hundred dollars -- enough to help with a few bills -- for recording the bands first big-time album, "Suburban Sprawl & Alcohol." Later this year hell hit the road again, traveling to more cities and bigger venues. "We try to play as many shows as possible and keep spreading the word." In fact, the work reminds him a bit of his marketing responsibilities in what used to be his day job.
The master builder
Constructing a 14-foot-wide octopus out of red bricks would be a daunting task for any builder. But Dan Bennett isnt your average bricklayer. Hes a master builder at Legoland Park in Carlsbad, Cal., and the thousands of small plastic bricks he uses to construct the models displayed throughout the park are just like the ones he played with as a boy. Now his Legos come in an unlimited supply of colors, sizes and shapes -- and he doesnt have to pay for them.
Bennett, 28, and five other full-time master builders spend their days snapping together Legos in a workshop inside the park. They design and construct everything from four-inch-high people to a life-size art gallery, complete with reproductions of 37 famous works of art (including the Mona Lisa and a bust of Abraham Lincoln), and a mini Manhattan.
Bennett has been building Lego models professionally in the U.S. since the park opened in 1999, after spending a year as a master builder for Legoland Windsor back home in his native England. Before that, he built models for movie sets.
Landing a Legos job is no snap. Applicants have to put together a model that fits a specific theme in 45 minutes or less (Bennett built a jellyfish for a test that called for constructing an animal). Although the job doesnt require a background in art, all six builders have creative experience, ranging from architecture to the fine arts; Bennett studied three-dimensional design in college.
Legolands latest search for a new master builder yielded so many talented applicants that the park ended up hiring three new people. Depending on their education and experience, master builders earn a starting salary of $13 to $15 an hour and get on-the-job training in Lego construction techniques.
"The hardest thing to build is a sphere," says Bennett. And faces are particularly challenging because its difficult to duplicate expressions. Bennett, whose specialty is sculpture, studied photographs of Shaquille ONeal to build a Lego model of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star.
Ideas often start out as drawings; a computer program then converts the design into a blueprint for construction. But to see if an idea will work, Bennett likes to go to the beach near his home and sculpt the image out of sand.
"Anything can be made from Legos," he says. Except for the one thing builders need most -- a spare set of fingers.
Ah, wilderness
Kurt Frantz interrupts a telephone conversation to head toward his front window. An elk has careered into the yard, and he wants to take a closer look.
Its just another day on the job for Frantz, 56. Last summer, he was practicing medicine in Enid, Okla., and contemplating early retirement. Now, hes a full-time family practitioner at Mammoth Clinic, a year-round facility in Yellowstone National Park, where he tends to the medical needs of tourists, park employees and residents of nearby Gardiner, Mont.
Thirty years ago, as a fourth-year medical student, Frantz spent a three-month rotation in the park -- "the best summer of my life," he says. After raising a family in Oklahoma, he and his wife, Ivana, wanted to do something different. Frantz inquired about summer employment in the park but was told that doctors were no longer being hired for seasonal work. A few months later, Yellowstone called with an even better offer: a year-round job.
At the clinic, Frantz mostly treats ailments familiar to any family practitioner -- broken bones, for instance, and minor trauma -- along with outdoor hazards such as frostbite, hypothermia and the occasional misaimed fishhook. Because Mammoth Clinic lacks sophisticated diagnostic equipment, he says, "we have to practice much more by the seat of our pants."
Back in Oklahoma, the Frantzes had a combined income of about $250,000 a year from Kurts private practice, part-time teaching at the University of Oklahoma and part ownership of an urgent-care clinic, plus Ivanas job as executive director of a community TV station. Now Kurt earns less than half that total, and Ivana doesnt have a paying job -- she concentrates instead on domestic hobbies, and on hiking and fishing. But Kurts employer picks up the $40,000 cost of his malpractice insurance -- significantly higher than it was in Oklahoma because he supervises physician assistants in remote clinics -- and he gets a "generous" vacation allowance that lets him and Ivana travel back to Oklahoma to visit family.
And the Frantzes enjoy another awesome perk: free housing in the park. "I can walk to work every day viewing the glories of our Lord," says Frantz, who starts his quarter-mile stroll to work in the shadow of Electric Peak and encounters great horned owls, coyotes and elk along the way. As for retirement plans, theyre on permanent hold. "Ill stay until they kick me out," he says.
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How to turn the job of your dreams into reality
-- Contributing to this article: Jane Bennett Clark, Kimberly Lankford, Sean Oneill, Robert Otterbourg And Catherine Siskos, Elizabeth Kountze 2004, The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.
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