Adam Trahan: My Work

My first real job while I was in High School was making industrial and residential stained glass windows. I worked with a couple of my friends doing it part time and even full time for a while. The big panels are made by a team of craftsmen (read me and a couple of friends) and we even installed them. We made them from blueprints, cutting out the pieces from the paper, matching them on the appropriate color coded one inch thick glass. We then cut the pieces out on a diamond blade saw. That thing screamed as it ripped through the glass. Now these were made at Glassart Studio in Scottsdale during the late seventies.

I remember cutting out the hand of G~d while listening to Black Sabbath!

The panels were installed in Saint Maria Goretti Roman Catholic Church in Scottsdale Arizona.

I’m so proud of the work I did there.

The big ceiling panel was at the third terminal of Sky Harbor Airport. I refused to install those as I was afraid of heights. True. I still am to this day, I get a really sick feeling in my stomach when standing near the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Why?

Because hundreds and hundreds of times I’ve run off the edge with my wing.

Without a wing you fall.

…and die.

The bottom stained glass windows were designed by Maureen Mc Guire and crafted by Glassart and installed in my parents home.

I worked at Glassart Studio and Lincoln Distributers during the years of 1978 - 80.

Lincoln Distributors was a stained glass warehouse of industrial scale. Both businesses were owned by Joseph Colville Lincoln, a National Soaring Champion and subsequent world record holder in sailplanes.

Mr. Lincoln had passed away before I worked there but if I would have known I was working for a sailplane champion, my life would have taken a very different turn…

Such an honor to have been involved with the creation of many works at Glassart

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I briefly worked synthesizing turquoise, taking chalk mined but prematurely harvested. We infused polyester resin and catalyzed it creating turquoise, artificially aging it.

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In 1983 I joined the Army. I was infantry trained first, then I became a Combat Medic. I earned my expert field medical badge and was chosen by B company to support them in Jungle Tracking school in Johar Baru, Malaysia.

I completed my commitment with the Army and exited with an honorable discharge.

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PsiCor (Psi-perfusion services incorporated) Cor (Latin for Heart) was a job I started after working as an instrument tech and a medical assistant at Scottsdale Healthcare. Psicor was a national company that supported Cardiovascular surgery with related technologies. They had an education system within the company and had a working relationship with Grossmont College in San Diego.

I had an entry level position and worked my way through the program to become a certified Perfusion Assistant. Basically I assisted the heart lung machine operator and the anesthesiologist as well as the Cardiovascular Surgeon.

In a few years I became a traveler.

It was an intense job and I remember at one point telling my employer after 36 hours of continuous working in three back to back open heart surgeries as well as circulatory assist monitoring, I need to go home and sleep, clean up and relax. They flew in my replacement on a corporate jet.

Soon after, I changed position to work back at Scottsdale Healthcare as an anesthesia assistant.

That’s where I meet Robert Fisher, the one that was on the FBI’s ten most wanted list. That’s a story that is just such a mind screw for me…

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I was hired to help establish a college for Cardiovascular Sciences within Midwestern University. I helped develop a cutting edge high fidelity heart lung machine simulation and teaching platform. I managed the Cardiovascular Laboratory and assisted the program and its students in day to day services.