Burl Skaggs: In the clouds

Day in the life: Burl Skaggs
 

Burl Skaggs lives in a two-story house in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Each workday he has breakfast, kisses his wife Carol goodbye, and goes down to his extra-large garage. Then he taxis his 1958 Beechcraft Bonanza J-35 airplane down the street, over to the nearby runway, and flies 108 miles to the Palo Alto airport to go to work at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Burl is one of many pilots in a small community where almost everybody has a plane in their front yard.

A lifetime tinkerer, Burl is a deputy head in SLAC's Conventional and Experimental Facilities department. As both manager and engineer, he set up a building-size maze of cooling pipes for the PEP-II electron and positron storage ring and upgraded SLAC's master electrical power substation. On the weekends, this former competitive ballroom dancer spends time machining engine parts, playing with his dog Maxx, and, of course, flying.

"I’ve always liked the view from above. It’s a different perspective on how things are glued together."   "I enjoy the precision of machining. It’s learning a skill I haven’t had much experience with before." Photos: Burl Skaggs, Erik Vance Text: Erik Vance   "SLAC is a unique experience with the combination of engineering and science. It’s a challenge to deal with such different personalities, and it’s satisfying being a part of the work they do here."

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