Cool Jobs 2: Above It All

There are people on the Grand Strand who are above it all.

Literally.

No, we are not talking about snobs or elitists. We are talking about folks lucky enough to have jobs that are head-and-shoulders above the rest.

For this, our second installment of Working 4 a Living: Cool Jobs, The Surge got to know three remarkable individuals who make it their business to reach new heights every day – whether it be flying passengers up and down the coast in a helicopter, jumping out of planes and teaching others to do the same, or entertaining visitors from a lofty perch on stilts.

Some of us are wired to seek the thrill of adventure, and a select few are fortunate enough to go all-in with this and make a living at it.

But there is more to this equation: All three of these people are actively engaged in bringing joy to others by way of an unparalleled view, an adrenaline rush or even a balloon animal or a joke handed down from on high – making memories.

There are so many personalities with so many compelling stories right here in our little chunk of paradise – and The Surge’s Working 4 a Living feature has long been on a mission to seek them out and share them with you. What’s your story?

Rich Lambert: From the Tundra to the Beach

After working as a commercial diver, Rich Lambert took to the skies.

Lambert, 40, is currently a helicopter pilot with OceanFront Helicopters here on the Grand Strand – doing what he loves and imparting happiness to others one trip at a time – giving his clients stunning views of the area and perhaps enabling some of them the chance to check off an item on their bucket lists.

He is also a mechanic with the company, and to say he knows the ins-and-outs of the company’s fleet of Robinson R44s would be an understatement.

This is a departure from his work as a hard-hat diver – where he worked in treacherous areas like the sewers of Charleston and in the spent fuel pools of nuclear power plants.

This is Lambert’s second incarnation with OceanFront Helicopters.

He just returned from Alaska in January, having worked multiple aviation gigs – in stark contrast to the sunny shores of Myrtle Beach. With a company called Soloy Helicopters, he filled a dual position as mechanic and second-in-command [SIC] pilot, utilizing bigger, more powerful turbine helicopters.

One job took him on a mineral exploration project for a Canadian company. “We flew all over Denali National Park and the Maclaren Glacier Area and were operating between Anchorage and Fairbanks,” he said.

On a mechanical support gig with Soloy, they towed an aerial sonar, looking for suitable spots for new natural gas pipeline in Alaska.

“I decided that I had been cold long enough, so I came back down South,” he said.

Lambert said that OceanFront Helicopters [www.oceanfront-helicopters.com] is the ideal situation for pilots looking to log a great deal of flying time while interacting with folks from all walks of life.

“You just can’t meet that volume of people anywhere else – from all over the planet,” he said. “I just recently met a couple that was actually from Alaska, and talked to them for about 15 or 20 minutes on the ground after we got done with our flight.”

He said the couple was amazed that Lambert came to Myrtle Beach because it was so hot here.

“I was like – ‘Well it was so cold where you guys are.’ In Fairbanks you walk outside and your teeth feel like they are shattering out of your mouth.”

In response to recent flooding, OceanFront Helicopters provided air support to local media outlets.

“We took camera crews around – just pretty much just trying to get an estimate on what the damage was. The river hadn’t even crested yet, but it was still high, and then the next few days all of the water that was inland started moving in this direction. That’s when the really bad flooding happened.”

When Weekly Surge went up with Lambert for this story, he pointed out contrasting shades of water in the ocean along the coast.

“All of this fresh water is coming out from offshore and it’s trying to mix with the salt water – so you can see a definite color change,” he said. “It’s like a selenic layer, and as the boats are going through it you can see them churning up the fresh water that is sitting on top of the salt water. It’s very dramatic.”

Lambert also takes pride in his role as mechanic.

“We are in these machines every day, flying our own masterpieces, if you want to put it that way,” he said. “We maintain them, track and balance them, and overhaul our own helicopters as well.”

He said he could try to describe the helicopter experience, but that wouldn’t come close to living it.

“You can describe what triple mousse chocolate cake tastes like, but until you have had it in your mouth, you just don’t know,” he said.

But what about the folks that are a still reluctant to ride – perhaps even after booking a tour?

“You want to give them this amazing experience – and you take all of their expectations and totally rewrite the book for them,” he said. “You take them from a position of fear because they don’t know what to expect, and when it pops up off the ground like a magic carpet and they just start flying away like Aladdin, their eyes get really big and they start creeping up with this smile – and I can just kind of turn and look at them and say, ‘Oh yeah…’.

Mary Frishman and the Drop Zone

Mary Frishman teaches people to jump out of planes.

She is also an active duty army engineer working on a master’s degree in Geology at UNC Wilmington – but she is very familiar with Myrtle Beach because she is here every weekend as a skydiving instructor at Skydive Myrtle Beach, located at the Grand Strand Airport in North Myrtle Beach.

Having been skydiving for five years, Frishman said she has been an instructor for a year.

“I had what is called a coach rating, like a baby instructor that works under the supervision of a higher-rated instructor,” she said, adding that she did that for two years before receiving her instructor rating. There are various levels for instructors, and she is currently an accelerated freefall instructor, or AFF.

With Skydive Myrtle Beach [www.skydivemb.com] almost two years, Frishman used to skydive at the Raeford Parachute Center in North Carolina and worked as a coach there before she and boyfriend/fellow instructor Kevin Carver switched to Skydive Myrtle Beach.

Frishman said she also a jumpmaster with the army, and has more than 60 static line jumps under her belt. A static line is a cord attached to the aircraft and to the jumpers’ deployment bags, automatically opening the parachutes as they jump.

But what motivated her to pursue this in the civilian world?

“I started skydiving because my friend was into it and he kind of convinced me to go do it,” she said. “I was already a static line jumper at the time, and got paid to jump out of an airplane.”

At first, she said she wasn’t big on the idea of paying other people to jump out of planes.

“But once I started and saw how very different civilian skydiving is from military jumps – I immediately fell in love with it. I honestly stayed with the skydiving because of all of the people that I met and the friendships that I made – more than the actual skydiving itself. But I absolutely love jumping out of airplanes.”

In order to become an instructor, she said a person has to have six hours of freefall and has to go through an instructor rating course. Candidates have to be a coach for at least a year and have a certain amount of jumps before earning the AFF rating.

For people coming in for the first time, Frishman suggests a tandem jump – just to see if they like it.

Tandem means that the student is connected to a harness to a tandem skydiving instructor.

If a person is still motivated after the this, they can go deeper with a six to eight hour course on the ground, which provides details about the parachute, the airplane, the skydive – how to fly the parachute and all sorts of emergency procedures.

“And then you go up on a plane with two instructors – they hold onto you while you exit – and you jump. Once you pull your parachute – you are completely on your own. We put a radio on you so that we can talk to you a little bit, but you have to fly that parachute and you get to learn to skydive.”

Frishman said the crew at Skydive Myrtle Beach is a tight-knit bunch – and the place has a welcoming family atmosphere.

Her scope of duties at Skydive Myrtle Beach centers mostly on AFF students.

“I check their logbooks to see where they are in their progress– and then I put them into a rotation because if there are a couple of students that come out, they each want to do more than one jump. We are limited by the number of instructors that we have.”

On each jump, she teaches them a different skill.

On the ground, she gets students set up with all of the gear that they need and jumps with them. After every jump, there is a debriefing, where they talk about the jump. Many times, there is video of these jumps available for review.

“Most of the time they learn more in the debrief process than the skydiving itself. Then it’s on to the next student.”

She knows the lay of the land here, and has seen much of it from the air.

Every weekend, she and Carver stay at the KOA Campground in Myrtle Beach – and might be spotted at the Noisy Oyster or the Pier House Restaurant at the 2nd Avenue Pier. They also enjoy Molly Darcy’s Irish Pub & Grill in North Myrtle Beach.

Her future looks bright.

“I look forward to getting my tandem rating – obviously working toward getting my master’s – and then eventually going back to operational army to lead soldiers again. I also want to try wingsuiting – it’s an aspect of skydiving I haven’t done yet.”

Jay Wright and the High Life

Jay Wright, 25, began stilt walking at the same time he moved to Myrtle Beach.

A friend who worked at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville at Broadway at the Beach encouraged him to try it – and since then he done well for himself, performing on stilts at Margaritaville for the past six years. He also performs at Banditos Restaurant & Cantina – wowing kids and adults alike, and handing out balloon art from his lofty perch.

Wright moved to Myrtle Beach from Columbia, ready for a change of pace. Though relatively close by, he said the Grand Strand was far enough away for him to call it a new home.

“This place can be very amazing as far as the weather, the people and the atmosphere,” he said. “I have been fortunate enough to actually entertain people and bring joy to kids and adults around here. It’s very profitable for us to hang out and have fun.”

So much so that he started his own company called Urban Circus Street Art, where he performs at all sorts of events and venues for multiple organizations, particularly SOS Health Care, Inc., which serves the autism community here in Myrtle Beach.

“I have done work directly with Chick-fil-A, the Harley Dealerships, and I do multiple events a year,” he said, adding nightclubs and private birthday parties to the mix.

“You name it and I can be there – fundraisers, business openings – all over the place. It is just really remarkable what people will actually want, and once they see my performances, they wind up calling me for almost anything.”

Stilt walking can’t possibly be for the faint-of-heart.

“You have to have a bit of a fearless conscience,” he said. “You have to be able to adapt and not fall on people – and be comfortable in the way you walk and talk.”

Being personable and entertaining are two key components to his success.

“You are noticed as soon as you step on the floor wherever you are working. Being ten feet tall, you’re kind of hard to miss.”

The stilts are made of magnesium, and are typically used in the drywall industry – and to get up on them, Wright said he tries to sit on anything that is tall, like a truck bed or a tall table. “You use your surroundings and do whatever you are able to do to strap your legs on and be able to stand up and go.”

When he is working at Margaritaville, he says he is all over the restaurant – inside, outside, even upstairs. But how does he get upstairs?

“One leg at a time, man,” he said, and he already had good balance because he used to be a pro skater until a knee injury blindsided him.

Wright is all about drawing people out and eliciting a reaction.

“It’s a whole lot of fun – trying to get people out of their comfort zones, even if they weren’t necessarily wanting to interact with you. You can cater to many different clienteles and make it fun and entertaining for everyone. Kids especially adore it because we do the balloon art as well.”

Wright is also a bona fide gear head.

“I build motorcycles,” he said. “I have a functioning hobby shop down in Garden City where I wrench on bikes – and I have been able to sell close to 60 motorcycles and 40 hot rods.”

His motorcycle builds run the gamut from custom Harleys, choppers and baggers to rat bikes.

“Rat bikes are basically dirty, grungy bikes that people look at and go, ‘Oh my God’ – but yet you are still looking at them.”

When work is play, it doesn’t seem like work at all.

“My grandfather told me at a young age that if you enjoy what you do, you will never work a day in your life. So I have lived with that mentality and that motto – and I have tried to find jobs that I enjoy and actually bring joy to other people – and reciprocate a little bit to make it worthwhile. But it’s more fun than anything.”

That being said, what does the future hold for Jay Wright?

“It’s limitless, man. I want to take everything to new heights and see where I could wind up,” he said.

This story was originally published October 9, 2015 at 4:09 AM with the headline "Cool Jobs 2: Above It All."