Michael McCrum has lived in Texas, Colorado and Georgia, and worked in several different industries. Now settled in Marietta, GA and working as a supervisor for an HVAC company, McCrum is happy with where his life has taken him.
McCrum graduated in 1995, and took a job building houses for the late Jimmy Weems, who ran a construction business. McCrum had worked on dairies before but was new to construction, so he had a steep learning curve. “We built houses from the ground up, concrete to turnkey, so everybody did everything,” he said.
He worked for Weems for about five years before he found another job at FMC as a machinist. “It was production work, so you pretty much did the same thing every day,” he said. “Push buttons, run parts for the oil field.”
McCrum stayed at FMC for 9 years, when he and his then-wife moved to Montevista, Colorado to work on his in-law’s house. There, he found another machinist job.
“It was a different kind of machine work — manual instead of computerized,” he said. “We went up there, worked there for about three or four years, and we loved it. It was hard, though. It was a very poor area, but it was very expensive to live there because it was a tourist area.”
After a few years in Colorado he moved back to Texas, working at a machine shop in Fort Worth. Around this time, his mother, Beverly Blackwell, started getting sick, and McCrum moved back to Dublin to help take care of her.
He went back to working at FMC, and also found another job on the side doing HVAC work with Steven Pepper. He liked the variety of the HVAC work, and soon transitioned to doing it full time.
“It’s a different challenge every day,” he said. “You’re running service calls, you’re hardly ever in one spot more than a day. It was constant travel and it didn’t ever get boring.”
McCrum remarried, and he and his new wife lived in Dublin for a few more years, until McCrum’s mother passed away. His wife is from Georgia, so the couple decided to move there in 2020.
“It’s the best move that I’ve made, for my career, my life and everything,” he said.
The couple originally moved to Woodstock, Georgia, and McCrum started with another HVAC company, Casteel Heating and Air. He quickly moved up to a supervisor position for installations, then worked as a manager for the company in Florida for a year.
Earlier this year, McCrum and his family moved back up to Georgia and settled in Marietta, a midsize city northwest of Atlanta. “This is probably where we’re going to stay,” he said. “We’re just far enough out of Atlanta, to not be in Atlanta, and we’re pretty close to the mountains.”
An average day starts early for McCrum as a supervisor for the company. “I get up at five o’clock, drive about 45 minutes to work, and I usually leave by about three,” he said. “I don’t have to physically do much work anymore, which is good because I’ve had three shoulder surgeries.”
McCrum doesn’t plan to make any changes to his career going forward. “I’m pretty content right now,” he said. “Where I’m at right now is fine. I tried the manager part of it, but it was a little bit more [of a time commitment] than I’m willing to give right now. I have a five year old daughter, and I was missing out on a lot of stuff being a manager and being at work all the time.”
When he has some free time, McCrum enjoys camping, fishing, playing golf, and spending time with his family.
McCrum lives with his wife Molly, who he met at Woody’s near Dublin, their five-yearold daughter Parker and McCrum’s 14-year-old son from a previous marriage, Scout. McCrum also has two other children who live in Texas, Emily, 19, and Jaisa, 25, and one grandchild. His parents, Stanley McCrum and Beverly Blackwell, have both passed away, and his step-father, Glen Blackwell, still lives in Dublin.
His family is McCrum’s first priority and biggest inspiration in his life right now. “I’m just providing and making sure my kids have what I didn’t,” he said. “And I’m trying to give my wife the best life she can have too.”
McCrum’s advice to Dublin graduates is to keep chasing what makes them happy, even if it means making big life changes when priorities shift.
“Follow what you like to do; follow your dreams,” he said. “It’s taken me a couple of different careers to get to where I’m at, and I couldn’t be any happier now.”
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.