Dave Bross
1952 -

1965 - 1970

Hobby jobs - Like mowing lawns, salvaging TVs, lawnmowers, and whatever else.
Nothing I liked better than going out hunting salvage on the night before junk pick up day. That's REALLY special when you're living in the richest neighborhoods in the country.


1968 - 1969

Mowing lawns and landscaping
Joe Macri, Norwalk Ct.
Joe was a wonderful guy and was really good to all of us who worked for him. Joe had the landscape accounts at some incredible estates around Fairfield county, where there's certainly no shortage of money. We went to some amazing places.


1970-1971

Foreign/Exotic Auto Apprentice Mechanic
Cars & Classics, Darien, CT.
Unfortunately, this fellow "forgot" to pay the feds his payroll taxes, so that was the end of that job.


1971-1973

Foreign/Exotic Auto Apprentice/Mechanic
New Canaan Foreign Car Service, New Canaan, CT.
This was one very tough German who taught me decent work habits and some excellent basic mechanical skills. Thanks Gunther, I certainly owe you for that. I Left here to try my hand at being a dealership mechanic at Continental Motors in Bridgeport Ct.


1973-1974

Pool Table Moving, Setup and Repair
A friend was moving back to Colorado and he gave/taught me this business so someone would be there for his old customers. You always have to play a game of pool after you work on someones table.
After hundreds of games...I still can't shoot pool!


1973

Foreign Auto Mechanic
Continental Motors
Fairfield, CT
Typical (boring) dealership line mechanic work.
These were the years of the first fuel crisis so most of us, myself included, were laid off.


1974-1976

Truck & Construction Equipment Fleet Mechanic, Operator, Driver
E.M. Workman Co.
Norwalk, CT
This was a septic tank and portable toilet rental outfit. Some of the best people I ever worked for. I would have done almost anything for them but I had finally taken enough of northern winter weather and deciced to head south.


1976 - 1977

Auto & Truck Mechanic, Machinist, & Manager
Ed Lovells' Auto & Truck Garage
Gainesville, FL
Ed is gone now. I'll always appreciate the time he took to teach me the ways of the south and his crazy sense of humor.


1978-1979 & 1980-1981

Foreign/Exotic Auto
Mechanic, Machinist, & Manager
Oscars Imported Car Service
Gainesville, FL
Oscar Rich was another VERY tough old mechanic of German heritage and the best mechanic I ever met, bar none. Oscar's gone now too, and I'm forever grateful for all the things he taught me.


1979

Partners in a motorcycle shop
British Specialties
Gainesville, FL
You know how partnerships can be. My partner having the nickname of "Rotten Ron" should have been a major clue. Duh! I bailed out of this one.


1979-1980

Automotive & Truck Mechanics Instructor
Gainesville Job Corps Center, Gainesville, FL
I do love teaching, but this was definitely "public service", as it only paid minimum wage. I finally had to give it up and go back to working with Oscar so I could pay the bills.


1980-1984

Stock Car Racing
Crew Chief
Hobby stockers and IMCA modifieds. Local tracks. This was just at the end of the golden era, when you could win with determination, intelligence, and junkyard parts. Replaced by the era of cubic money. I even tried to be a driver...but what I did best was "safety harness tester". My reaction times aren't quick enough to be a skilled driver and I got tired of fixing the race car after I wrecked it.


1981-1984

Domestic/Foreign/Exotic Auto/Truck Mechanic, Machinist, & Manager
Dave Mays Automotive
Gainesville, FL
Dave is still one of my favorite people, he's an entomologist who would rather work on cars.
Dave is still doing good work and still a whole lot of fun.


1982 - 1984

Newspaper Route for The Gainesville Sun
The Sun canceled my contract because I would not deliver any more papers to people who would not pay.
I never missed a night for those few years but I guess circulation numbers meant more to them than good service.


1984-1990

Salvage/Scrap Metal Business Owner
Dave Bross, Cash for Junk,
Archer, FL
I started this one from nothing, running those newspapers at night while I made all the mistakes and learned all the lessons. I built it up to where it made a very good living. At it's peak, I was moving over a million pounds of metal a year all by myself.
The zoning department, forced into it by a few jealous neighbors and a crooked politician, put me out of business.


1987

Auto Parts Sales
B&L Auto Parts
Archer, FL
My friends who owned this needed a little extra help.
I got some good experience in retail sales and parts work.


1990 - 1990

Working with my sister Nancy in her management consulting business
Man, did I learn a WHOLE lot doing this. My sister was always way ahead of the curve.
Things like her business was already running digitally instead of on paper in 1990.
I wasn't overly happy locked up indoors in a suit, so after a year it was back to more familiar things.



1991-92
Truck Fleet Mechanic/Driver
Nuts & Bolts Recycling
Seattle, WA
Evil People. This one ended with me injured on the job and some serious interpersonal conflict.


1991-1994

Automotive Teacher
University of Washington Experimental College
Seattle, WA
Shoreline Community College
Seattle, WA.
Continuing education. Courses to teach people how to get the most from their vehicles.


1993

Pizza Delivery
Pizza Time, Seattle WA
A very fun part time job. People are always glad to see you when you're bringing them food.


1995-1998

Salvage/Scrap Metal Business Owner
Dave Bross, Cash for Junk
Archer, FL
Seattle "no sun" winters finally got to me, so it was back to the sunny south and back into the scrap business again. Scrap prices were higher in these years then they had ever been.
Then...the Feds let the Asian countries dump all their metal into our markets for pennies on the dollar in '98, and that was almost the end of the domestic steel industry, along with the domestic scrap metal market. Park the truck...say goodbye.


1998 - 2001

Transport Driver, self employed
Moving trucks, RVs and busses to where they needed to go.
This work started to disappear due to insurance companies requiring the owners of the vehicles to carry expensive liability insurance on all transport drivers. The vehicle owners had to go to employing "in house" drivers and not hiring the self employed.


2005 - 2017
Bookselling
I read a LOT, so this was a natural when I needed to sell off books that weren't keepers
It morphed into a side gig buying up the books from estates, schools businesses and the like and reselling them online.
My main outlet for most of it was Half.com, which Ebay suddenly and mysteriously shut down in 2017.
It wasn't worth bothering with after that.

2001 - 2019

School Bus Driver
Levy County School District
My favorite job of all time.
Good pay for great part time work.
Full benefits and the summers off too.
My favorite thing about this? Teaching those social skills to kids who never would have known.

Grab a copy of the School Bus book I wrote. Even if you're not thinking about being a driver it will tell you how to keep your kids safe by spotting any problems on the School Buses where you live:
http://howtobeaschoolbusdriver.com/


1986 -

Glass Artist.
Beads, decorative art and jewelry via lamp work, furnace work, fusing and cold working.
Lots of research and experimentation with glass color chemistry and digging up glass technical history.

I had a lampworking and furnace glass studio doing well until the 2008/9 financial crash.
A lot of what made it profitable was furnace beads, which sold to bead shops in quantity for a very good price.
The 08/09 crash finished off all the bead shops I was doing business with.

Another contributing factor to shutting it down was that a majority of art glass customers were my age, and these folks were getting rid of art as they downsized, not buying more.
Younger generations seem to be more interested in spending on electronics...spending on art?
Not so much.

2015 - 2019

Volunteered as a truck driver and whatever else was needed at the local food bank, The Children's Table.
This came to a sudden end when the owner gave me some serious disrespect and a few other issues.
That got me to re-examine a lot of the other things that were problematic about helping them out, which ended with me saying good bye.

2019 - ?

Enjoying retirement and finishing off all those projects you never seem to have time for when you're working.
The main project currently is building a food forest and the usual large gardens.