Dale Thibodeau
Dale grew up in Houlton and graduated from Houlton High School in 1961. After working around Houlton after graduation, Dale went to Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, Conn to work in 1965. He worked as a production sheet metal worker where he manufactured jet engine parts out of sheet metal until 1973. At that time he entered a two year Machine Maintenance Electrical training program, spending four hours per day in the classroom and four hours per day in electrical construction and maintenance departments. After graduating in 1975, Dale worked as a maintenance electrician, mainly on a wide variety of welding machines. In 1986 he became a technical traded instructor where he taught the course that he had graduated from earlier.
In 1988 Dale left P&WA to work for a small company which had been started by a friend. The company manufactured and serviced electron beam welders. He spent twelve years as a Senior Field Service Engineer. His duties were to travel across the country installing, servicing and repairing his company’s welders and those manufactured by several competitor companies. He then spent several years as the Customer Support Manager for the same company. His duties were to direct the field service team and to coordinate with the shop team that was building welding machines and repairing customer electronic modules. He would take field service assignments if the workload got excessive.
In 2006 Dale had to retire early and return to Houlton because his wife’s illness requires constant care. In 2008 it became necessary to put Patsy in a nursing home. Later that year Dale began working for SAD 29 as a substitute teacher, ed tech and occasional math tutor. In 2012 Dale began work at Region Two as the Welding ed tech. In2014 he moved to the newly created Early Childhood Education ed tech.
Dale earned his Associates Degree from Manchester Community College in Conn. In 1980. Since working as a sub, he has taken six education related classes at the Houlton UMPI campus in order to enhance his teaching skills.