love to say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a Parker.” I tell my guys that all the time. Sometimes I run upon a problem. They’re having a problem. And I go in and I look at it — and I work on it however long it takes to get it done. And when I finish they’ll say, “Appreciate it man, I didn’t know how we were going to get that done.” And I say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a Parker.” And I go on. If you just don’t let the problem overwhelm you, and take a look at it and just figure it out, it can be done.

Well, one thing about me is I am me all the time. What applies here applies everywhere else. When I say, “Where there’s a will, there’s a Parker,” I mean that in my personal life too. You know first of all, I always put God before me in whatever I do, even in my job, I put Him there too because this is a dangerous profession. And things can happen to you. But once you put Him out there, then you go on with your life the way you normally go on with your life. Staying with something, sticking to something, seeing something through to the end is what I do on my job and in my own personal life. And that’s a value that I try to impart on my kids.

I know my kids get sick of hearing it. I got sick of hearing that too when I was growing up. But the older I got, the more I understood where my mother and father were coming from. And so I don’t mind it bothering them because I know that sooner or later, once they get out here into life, in the real world, they’ll hear me. I hear my parents all the time.

Stories from the Field