Taylor

Dean Taylor served six years in the Air Force as a munitions specialist. He is now a vice president for Webb Payroll Service, Inc. in Gardendale.

Tell us about your military career.

I started in May of ’01. I joined the military to get a college education and see the world, but the buildings were destroyed on Sept. 11, right after I had finished basic training, and that turned the whole situation around. I never had to go to the big sandbox; I spent some time in Florida, Korea and Las Vegas — I can’t really complain about where I was stationed!

What does a munitions specialist do?

We handle anything that goes “boom.” I started with missiles. I saw things that nobody had ever seen before. I was the first military personnel to ever handle them, and that was cool to me.

What’s it like being a veteran?

When you come home, you miss the camaraderie. And things have changed while you were gone. It’s made me more interested in politics, too. You see how decisions affect you and affect your brothers and sisters in arms. I pay a lot more attention to the news, now.

Has your military career helped you in what you do for a living now?

The military taught me how to deal with all kinds of people. I also learned to pay attention to detail; there’s a way to do things, and I follow it to a tee. When you’re dealing with munitions, you follow procedures. If you don’t, things blow up. Things don’t blow up if I make a mistake with somebody’s payroll, but people won’t get their checks on time or somebody will get fined or something else. One of our mottos in the military was “service before self,” which is also a motto of the Gardendale Rotary Club. So, it relates to my civic life, too.