Looking for help from my Minnesota peeps ;)

[ang.anderson]

It's been a really long time since I've visited the site, too long! 

I'm writing because this is the most obvious spot for me to check into, to solicit suggestions, advice, insight, etc. 

Let me take you back a few years... It was around 2006 that I started making an odd connection, something along the lines of, "If I love diving, and want to make money doing it (I was working PT at the MOA aquarium, a job I LOVED, but wasn't making much money), then the obvious solution is to become a commercial diver!"  If anyone's walked down this path, you know what an erroneous assumption it is! 

I'll make a long story short (because it's been a loooooooooong 3.5 years!).  I moved to Santa Barbara, CA to attend the Marine Diving Technology program at the City College there (), finished my Commercial diving certs, moved to Louisiana, decided to become an ROV tech/pilot instead, and have been working offshore for the past 2 years.

I really, really love my job.  I get to tinker and troubleshoot and rebuild and pilot an ROV bigger than my car, at 1000s of feet below sea level.   But, and I know you guys can understand this, maybe better than most of the population of the US can, because we are so damn rooted in Minnesota, and love the place so much... I just want to come home.  But I have no idea what to do!  I don't want to come home and work a job that doesn't challenge me, and to hell with the abysmal state of the job market.  Where there's a will, there's a way! 

So I'm asking you, my fellow Minnesotans and lovers of all things subsea...  Anything you can offer, any little nugget of insight (because you never know when you'll spark a fire!) you have to give...

Here's a little more info (I'll happily forward my resume, upon request!):
Harding HS grad (East Side! St. Paul)
College of St. Benedict grad (French Studies)
Studied abroad in France
Taught English in China
2000 Campaign work (DFL)
Divemastered in Thailand (Ao Nang, Krabi) & Indonesia (Pulau Wei, off Sumatra)
A few office jobs (The Bakken Museum, Messerli & Kramer PA)
Divemastered in California (Spectre Dive Boat, Ventura, CA)
Hull cleaning diver (fun, but yucky)
ROV pilot/technician for big GOM company (work-class ROV)

All replies (and votes of confidence) are greatly and warmly appreciated!  Here's to being around for some good MN diving this spring  

Thanks for reading, Angela