Jake Forbes Bio

       My name is Jake Forbes. Growing up on a farm in Iowa, the only aircraft that I was exposed to for all of my adolescent life were crop dusters. When I was 8 years old my grandparents took me to see the Blue Angels, I was hooked. From that moment on I loved airplanes and everything associated with them. Coincidentally, my first time on an airplane was when I was 18 and on my way to Navy boot camp in Great lakes, IL. I'm sure I wasn't the only kid on the plane who was enjoying his first ride, but at that moment everything and everyone faded out while I stared down at the ground.
       No matter what platform or what location we were operating from, the Blue Angels to the carrier, Diego to Qatar, I loved aviation. For 12 years I traveled from Florida to Maine, Hawaii to Florida, Florida to Virginia and 4 deployments along the way. The Navy gave me some of the greatest opportunities that I have ever had the privilege of enduring. In 2006 I met my wonderful wife while stationed in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. She was a midwesterner just like me and working as a travel nurse while going to school full time to be a Nurse Practitioner.  In 2009 I was selected to be a maintainer on an outstanding team,with the most fantastic people I have ever encountered, the Blue Angels. I watched and partook in the same air show over 300 times and it never got old. From Florida I went on to VFA-31, the Fighting Felix Tomcatters in Virginia Beach, VA and spent the next 3 years working harder than I ever had while in the Navy. While deployed to the Gulf in support of Operation Enduring Freedom aboard the Aircraft Carrier George H. W. Bush I was told that this would in fact be my "last ride", I was being separated from the Navy under the Enlisted Retention Board (ERB) which disconnected over 3000 Sailors from the only life they ever knew.
      Me being the optimist that I am chalked it up as the greatest experience of my life and moved on. In January 2013 I finished my BAS from ERAU, in March I received my FAA Airframe and Power Plant License, and in April my wife and I had our first child, Hayden (Go Hawkeyes!!). In June of 2013 I was contacted by L3 Communications and in August we packed our bags and headed west to Texas (Go Hawkeyes!!) where I began working as a Mechanic and my wife is currently working as a Cardiology Nurse Practitioner. In Fall of 2013 I decided that my best opportunity for continuing my love of Aviation at a higher pay-scale would be to go back to school, I started my MAS in November.
     While everyone around me cursed the Navy for separating me, I put all of the training that it gave me in one pocket and put all the lessons learned the hard way in the other (everything comes in handy sometime). Looking back I do wish I'd been able to continue my enlistment and push through to my retirement, but on the the other side of the coin I could not imagine a life where I was not at home everyday by 4 o'clock to spend with my family.