I always thought my pilot's license would take me to the clouds, not to the bottom of the ocean. At nineteen, fresh out of flight school and desperate for work that helped pay off my flight instruction, I jumped at the job offer from Pacific Aerotech—a small avionics company wedged between a flight school and a restaurant in Santa Monica.
The twenty-two employees of Pacific Aerotech worked in organized chaos, their desks cluttered with oscilloscopes, frequency analyzers, a machine shop, soldering area, shipping and receiving, a paint shop, and half-assembled prototypes that looked more like abstract art than aircraft components. I learned to read antenna gain patterns like weather maps, to understand how electromagnetic waves bent and twisted through the atmosphere. It was 1978, and I saw my first computer. A $250,000 HP gain pattern simulator, used to test new antenna prototypes. Complete with printer.
Twelve months in, driving the supply truck, working in the machine shop, testing antennas and soldering, Frank's boss approached me with an unusual assignment.
I blinked. "A what now?"
"Marine mammal research. We're developing satellite tracking antennas for dolphins—trying to help fishing boats avoid areas where pods are feeding. The Navy's interested too." Frank's eyes lit up with the fervor I recognize when he talked about a new challenge. "But we need to test the antenna placement, the signal propagation with the harness they have designed for the species they want tracked. Hence the porpoise cadaver."
The drive down Highway 101 gave me time to process the surreal turn my career had taken. The cadaver in the back of the van contained what had once been a sleek ocean dweller, now destined to become a test subject for our little antenna shop's attempt to protect its living cousins.
At Scripps, Dr. Martinez handed over the specimen with the reverence of someone passing along a sacred trust. "She beached herself near La Jolla last week," he explained. "Healthy adult female. No obvious cause of death. She'll help save others."
Back in Santa Monica, the rooftop kiddy pool had been filled with water. I watched as the team carefully positioned the porpoise, fitting it with a custom antenna that Frank had spent weeks designing. The antenna—barely larger than a small transistor radio—nestled just behind the animal's dorsal fin.
The first successful satellite ping came at sunset, the signal bouncing from the rooftop pool to a single satellite and back to our receiver. I felt something shift inside me as I watched the data stream across the screen—longitude, latitude, depth simulation, all the coordinates of a future dolphin life that could be saved.
Six months later, fishing boats in the Pacific began receiving automated alerts when their sonar detected dolphin pods. The reduction in accidental captures wasn't dramatic, but it was measurable. Real.
I still flew on weekends, still loved the freedom of open sky. But I'd found something else up on that Santa Monica rooftop—the strange satisfaction of building bridges between worlds, of turning metal and mathematics into protection for creatures who had never asked for human help but desperately needed it.
Sometimes, late at night in the workshop, I would think about the porpoise in the pool, about signals traveling fast to keep her family safe. In my own small way, I was still flying—just in a direction I'd never expected. About a year later, I decided to turn my focus to songwriting. "We put porpoise on the rooftop," was one of my first lyrics.
I performed an original tune, "Boots and Whips" at McCabes Guitar Shop, also in Santa Monica. It helped land me the girl. We're still together, flying in our dreams as we nap on the couch.