Michael Archuleta: Hi, everyone. Thanks for giving me a chance to speak. My name's Mike Archuleta. You probably know me as the Emergency Room Manager here at San Juan Regional Medical Center. I was asked to talk about something that's not hospital-related, something that I do on my own time, it's a passion of mine. It's aviation.

As a small kid, I had always thought about aviation, and it's always been an interest of mine. It's something that I shared with my oldest son, and we've talked about it and dreamt about it. And over the years, we've discussed different ways we could get into it and do things to explore that avenue that we'd never done before.

Here in 2019, I was talking to my wife about my desire to try and get into aviation. And we got to talking, and I came to the conclusion that if I just keep talking about it, I'd never do it. So, I put together a plan and I found a school in California to get into probably the easiest form of aviation there is, which is power paragliding or paragliding. I went to that school in California, it was in Visalia, just outside of Sacramento. And I spent a week learning how to fly a power paraglider. I was hooked immediately. I mean, the first time I got to the sky, I wanted more and more. And I learned how to fly. I came back home, purchased my first unit, started flying. Probably got about 50 hours into it. My son started flying with me. He got his own unit. And we flew all over the Four corners. I've been in like four or five different states I've got to fly, just with the power paraglider.

And it had really served to kind of fill that void, but then I wanted more. I've always been the type of person that's always wondered what was over the next hill and I wanted to go see what was there and this kind of helped me do that, but then I wanted to go further and further. So, I went ahead and got started looking around for schools to get my pilot's license. And I found one here in Farmington. And I started going to pilot lessons and I learned how to fly. I got my pilot's license. It took me about eight months to do that. And then, I started renting planes and flying around the Four Corners area. And then, I wanted to do it more and more, and it was a bother to be able to rent a plane, it was just really hard to do that. And the planes you got weren't exactly the best in the world. So, I started looking to buy a plane. I found a plane in Waukesha, Wisconsin. I went out, checked it out, did a pre-buy inspection, fell in love with the plane and brought it home. And now, I fly as much as I can, and I get to see different things. I've flown to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I fly back and forth to Pueblo quite a bit to see my grandkids. Flown down to Phoenix. I've flown over Monument Valley. I've got to fly and see the meteor crater. That's pretty cool, that's huge. But it's given me a chance to kind of see things that I would have never seen before.

I guess the messages that I would have is don't put things off. Life is too short. If you have a passion, pursue it. If you spend time, thinking about it, that's all that's ever going to happen. take the step forward and do what interests you. Thank you for giving me a chance to speak.

 Enjoy the rest of your day. And if you are in the building and you see me, or you want to stop by, if you have, any questions about aviation or how you could get involved to come see me.