Having a love of airplanes as long as I could remember.

From there, having a high school teacher who was a former WASP (Womens Air
Service Pilots) who was teaching a class in the school called "Aeronautics",
essentially the full FAA Ground School. She provided a $5 Demo Flight at
Arapahoe Airport (now Centennial - APA) when Arapahoe was a single 4000 foot
backtop runway.

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~mayfi...yfieldBio.html

After discharge from the military, my income tripled, and there was no
looking back.

Of course, $12 for a 150, $14 for a 172 and $5 for the instructor made a big
difference.