Jessica Jackson was afraid of heights when she first started her job as a wind turbine service technician — now, she spends most of her days working 300 feet in the air.

Jackson, 37, is a technician at Vestas, a wind turbine manufacturer, in Bee County, Texas, and earns $73,000 per year.

Climbing the turbine tower “isn’t as scary as you’d think,” she tells CNBC Make It. The tallest turbine on the wind farm Jackson works on is about 350 feet above the ground. It takes her less than 10 minutes to get to the top.

“Once you’re up there, you get to see the best views: You’re watching birds fly, eagles, hawks,” she says. “You get to see planes fly by. You get to see as far as you can see. It’s beautiful.”

Jackson has one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. The Labor Department reports that wind turbine service technicians have one of the highest rates of injury and illness of all occupations.

It’s also the fastest-growing job in the U.S., with employment in the sector expected to almost double over the next decade.

“Working in this field is hard, but it’s rewarding,” says Jackson. “I love what I’m doing, so it makes the job not seem like a job as much.”

Here’s how Jackson earns $73,000 a year as a wind turbine service technician in Texas.

Before she became a wind tech, Jackson was a stay-at-home mom for 10 years.

After she and her husband separated in 2019, when her youngest child started school full time the following year, Jackson decided to return to the workforce. But she was worried her opportunities — and earning potential — would be limited without a bachelor’s degree.

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She enrolled in college online part-time in 2017 but didn’t finish her bachelor’s degree in environmental science from the University of Arizona until 2022.

“Not having a college degree [yet] and being a single mom was hard,” says Jackson, who has four children between the ages of 10 and 21. “I was getting passed up for jobs that I had the experience and skills for only because I didn’t have that degree.”

Jackson’s ex-husband was working as a wind tech and recommended her for a job at Blattner Energy, a renewable energy contractor in northern Texas, installing tower wiring.

While you don’t need a bachelor’s degree to become a wind turbine service technician, some jobs might require you to complete a 2-year technical program or apprenticeship. Others, like Blattner Energy and Vestas, will provide on-the-job training for new hires.

Vestas’ training covers best practices for the turbine’s electrical equipment, technical procedures like bolt torque and tensioning as well as first aid and safety protocols.

Jackson quickly fell in love with the hands-on aspects of servicing the turbines, the quiet peace of working in the wind.

“It felt good knowing that when a turbine was fixed or ran more smoothly, you did that, just seeing the immediate results of your efforts,” she says.

Working in a field that aims to help the environment was another perk that attracted her to the job.

“Wind turbines produce clean energy that goes to a grid, which then powers your homes, businesses, cell phones, TVs .. it’s awesome,” says Jackson. “I tell my kids all the time: Do something you love, but also do something that helps others and helps the environment.”

That job introduced Jackson to Vestas, where she started working in February 2020.

Jackson gets to work at 7 a.m. and ends her shift by 5:30 p.m. She works five days a week.

Every day on the job is different but starts with a problem.

“What I’m working on changes every day depending on what error code, or problem with the turbine, you’re coming in to,” Jackson explains. “The wind turbines are smart, they’re basically computers and constantly communicating to us what is going on with them.”

Comparable to cars, wind turbines have sensitive electronic systems, generators, pumps and other critical components that are susceptible to freezing or breaking down. Jackson’s job is to inspect, maintain and repair such parts as needed to keep the turbines running and producing power.

Vestas has 66 turbines on the farm where Jackson works. She’s typically responsible for one turbine per shift, but some days, it could be several.

The hardest part of her job is the climb. Jackson has to scale a narrow, metal ladder inside the turbine and pull herself through a hatch at the top to access the turbine’s nacelle, which sits atop the tower and contains the machine’s main parts. It’s a vertical climb nearly 30 stories tall.

“Cutting any corners with safety could be the reason why I don’t go home that day,” says Jackson, who wears gloves, glasses, a helmet, harness and other protective equipment on the job. “Once you’re up there, you’re in your office and ready to work. Everything else is easier.“

She might have been scared of heights when she first started, but after practicing the same climb nearly every day, sometimes multiple times in the same afternoon, Jackson says she started to trust her equipment and “got a lot more comfortable climbing such high heights.”

Jackson plans to work as a wind turbine service technician until she retires in her 70s, if not sooner.

The job might be physically demanding, but Jackson says spending so much time outside on the farm — and climbing the towers — has helped her feel “stronger and healthier.”

She’s working toward getting promoted to a level-three technician at Vestas, a role that pays about $80,000 a year, then will train to become a lead technician after that, a role that pays about $100,000 a year.

“Having this job has given me financial stability and freedom, enabling me to afford activities that will make my children happy, like signing up for a basketball league, while still saving money every month,” she says.

As Jackson continues to climb the ranks in her career — both literally and figuratively — she hopes more women and non-degree holders will join her field.

“I’m extremely grateful for my job, I love what I do,” she adds. “If I was doing something else, I probably would not be as happy.”

Do you have a creative or nontraditional career path? We’d love to hear from you! Fill out this form to be considered for a future episode of “On the Job.”

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Deryl McKissack is no stranger to spotting toxic traits.

McKissack, 63, is the founder and CEO of Washington D.C.-based construction firm McKissack & McKissack, which she launched with $1,000 from her savings in 1990. She churned through employees who weren’t the right fit in her company’s early years and the business struggled, she says.

Finding the right talent helped grow her company, which now brings in $25 million per year in revenue, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

These three red flags stand out the most when McKissack is hiring employees or evaluating her current talent, she says.

Every boss needs to be able to trust their employees, McKissack says. People who lack integrity are a problem, especially managers who don’t give their teams proper credit.

Alarm bells go off in her head “if someone is saying ‘I did this’ the whole time, and they’re not giving credit to their team,” McKissack says.

McKissack isn’t the only person who says a lack of integrity is a red flag among employees: Heidi K. Gardner, a professional leadership advisor and distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School, similarly calls out workers who pass off other people’s work as their own. It’s unethical, and it gives off the impression that you don’t respect your colleagues, Gardner told Make It last year.

“Maybe they’re unable to actually see how much value the people around them bring to their own success,” she said. “And that inability to appreciate other people’s contributions is a huge red flag for me … It’s anti-collaborative.”

Nearly every team, no matter your industry, needs people who can work well with others. That’s difficult when your co-workers don’t like being around you, or vice versa.

McKissack says she needs to actually like her employees’ personalities, because if she doesn’t like to be around you, chances are, clients won’t either. “If I don’t want to be in their presence, then no one wants to be in their presence, usually” she says.

Having a warm, inviting personality at work can potentially take you farther in your career than your capabilities and credentials, self-made millionaire and entrepreneur Steve Adcock told Make It in April.

“Your personality will get you 10 times richer than your intelligence,” said Adcock. “I learned that throughout my career, slowly but surely. I worked with a lot of smart people, no doubt about it. But those smartest people in the office weren’t necessarily the ones getting the raises and promotions.”

McKissack has a three-word mantra for her business: humble, hungry, smart. She says she picked it up from author and business management expert Patrick Lencioni’s book, “The Ideal Team Player.”

“We have an insatiable appetite for success,” McKissack wrote on LinkedIn earlier this year. “Humility drives us to make decisions for the collective good … [and] we value emotional intelligence because we know that’s what builds strong relationships.”

Expecting employees to embody those three descriptors — humble, hungry, smart — turned McKissack’s firm into a workforce full of people dedicated to the same mission, rather than one that struggled with low employee engagement, she says.

They’re the “three virtues” of successful team players, according to Lencioni’s book.

“I kept saying, ‘We’ve been stagnant for years. Why am I stagnant?’” says McKissack. “But when I made that decision to make our mission larger than just what we do, bricks and mortar, but make it more about the betterment of mankind, is when we really started changing.”

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Chris Pyle spends the entirety of his workdays wearing a white tank top and boxer shorts, sitting in a recliner.

It’s an unusual setting for a mechanic, but a profitable one. Pyle started answering strangers’ questions about their gas and diesel engines on JustAnswer as a side hustle in October 2006.

It was quickly lucrative: He made $500 in his first month, then doubled it in November, then doubled it again. He quit his full-time $75,000-per-year job at Ford Motors when JustAnswer outpaced his salary in 2012, Pyle says.

Pyle made $170,500 in 2023, an average of $14,200 per month, on JustAnswer, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. His monthly income is more than three times as much as the national median monthly side hustle earnings and mechanic’s salary combined.

The job has also shaped his life: He and his wife bought a 34-acre plot of land for $130,000 in Dickson County, Tennessee, where he lives with his family. Pyle also bought an RV and is building a second home, largely by himself, on the property — all funded by his JustAnswer work.

While he works eight to 10 hours per day, seven days per week, he sets his own schedule, allowing him to be present for his family, he says.

“I was a Cub Scout master for eight years … I was a soccer coach,” Pyle, 45, tells Make It. “I could log off right now and go play a video game with my son, or go swim in the pool.”

Here’s how Pyle built his clientele and stays successful on JustAnswer.

Pyle discovered the side hustle organically: Ford hired and trained him as a transmission tech, and funded his certifications. He was virtually researching how to fix a transmission and found an answer supplied by another mechanic on Just Answer, he says.

He signed up and started answering a handful of questions in the afternoon after work, he says. He liked the challenge of diagnosing a motor he “couldn’t see, touch or smell,” and realized he had a knack for virtually helping people solve their mechanical problems, he says.

After he made $1,000 in his second month on JustAnswer, he took his wife to the mall, gave her half of the earnings and said, “Do not come back with any cash in your hand,” Pyle recalls.

He spent his half in 15 minutes at Bass Pro Shop, he adds.

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As Pyle’s earnings became more consistent, he realized he could use the side hustle to fund more than just mall runs, he says. He started spending more time on the platform. By 2012, he was spending three hours answering close to 40 questions per day, he says.

“For six years, my paycheck was very consistent working here,” Pyle says. “I was like, ‘Well, if I throw in some more hours, that [check] will increase.’”

Pyle’s JustAnswer paycheck remains consistent and has increased every year. He has the most work in the summers, he says, when people are mowing their lawns and traveling.

His schedule remains flexible in that he can log on and off whenever he wants — but because he is paid by the answer, he still has to work at least 40 to 60 hours a week to maintain his income, he says. He works every single day, including Christmas and birthdays.

Pyle doesn’t mind the tradeoffs. His working hours on JustAnswer have helped him build a career, home and life without a boss, he says.

His earnings also support his wife, who quit her nursing job, and their two sons, who she homeschools, Pyle says. While he has to file his own taxes and pay for his family’s medical insurance, he also can write off things like his phone, internet, his HP laptop and 10% of his utilities bill, he says.

There are some cons, though. Despite his 12 years working on the site, Pyle is not an actual JustAnswer employee. The platform reviews its “experts” on a weekly basis, and their grade affects how much they make per answer. The company does not openly share the criteria, but Pyle says his answers and customer service skills usually receive a high rating.

Still, he has no plans to drastically change his day-to-day work, he says. Once Pyle’s house is finished, he wants to cut back on his JustAnswer work, but he’ll likely still be online at least 30 hours per week, he says.

“I have zero plans to go back for a real job, unless I’m the boss,” Pyle says. “Between my work attire and the environment that I work in, [life] is pretty good.”

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The foods in your daily diet play a major role in how healthy you are and how long a life you live. In fact, one of the key practices of people living in blue zones is eating a diet of mostly plant-based foods of fruits, vegetables and nuts.

In past interviews with CNBC Make It and other publications, many centenarians credited their diet for living a long, healthy life.

Here’s what four people, ages 99 and older say they always eat and also what they never do.

Elizabeth Francis, the oldest living person in the U.S. who is 115 years old, told ABC 13, that she eats “everything.”

But Francis “always grew her vegetables in the backyard. I never saw her go to a fast food restaurant as much like Chick-fil-A and all the places I liked to go. She never did that,” her granddaughter, Ethel Harrison, told TODAY.com.

Francis has also never smoked and doesn’t drink alcohol, Harrison noted.

At 102 years old, Deborah Szekely still helps to run her fitness resort and spa three times a week. Szekely has followed a mainly plant-based diet since her childhood.

“I’m a pescatarian. And I actually have been fortunate of never eating meat because of my parents,” she told Make It.

Her typical breakfast, lunch and dinner looks like:

• Breakfast: Yogurt, a banana and whole grains.
• Lunch: Salad at home, she said, or lunch at restaurants.
• Dinner: A meal of fish, salad and a baked potato or she tries something new.

Her diet is very similar to the Mediterranean diet, and it includes fish, whole grains and fruits and vegetables.

Shirley Hodes, who was 106 years old when she spoke to Make It in March of last year, said she aims to limit the animal fat that she consumes and only drinks skim milk.

“I did like to eat a simple, balanced diet without too much sweets,” Hodes said. She was adhering to the guidelines she was taught in the Red Cross nutrition course she took during the Second World War.

When Forbes spoke to Daisy McFadden in 2010, she was 99 years old. She shared what she usually ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Her meals usually included:

• Breakfast: Oatmeal, cranberry juice and a banana.
• Lunch: Salad with beets, cucumbers, tomatoes and chicken or fish
• Dinner: Lean meat and steamed vegetables
• Dessert: Fresh fruit

“I don’t drink soda at all, and never have,” McFadden told Forbes. She drank water, juice, milk or iced tea instead.

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While the best state to retire in the U.S. is also one of the smallest in the country, the worst state to retire is the largest.

Alaska ranks as the worst state in the U.S. to retire for the third year in a row, according to Bankrate’s study of the best states to retire in 2024.

To compile its list of the best and worst places to retire in the U.S., Bankrate ranked all 50 states across five weighted categories:

• Affordability (40%): Analyzes factors such as local and state sales taxes, cost of living and average annual property taxes
• Overall wellbeing (25%): Includes factors such as the number of adults over 62 per 100,000 residents and access to food and health care
• Quality and cost of health care (20%): Looks at factors such as the cost of health care at the state level and the performance of each state’s health system
• Weather (10%): Evaluates data on factors such as a state’s average annual temperature and average number of tornado strikes, earthquakes and hurricane landfalls
• Crime (5%): Examines factors such as the amount of property crimes and violent crimes per 100,000 residents

Bankrate analyzed datasets from a number of sources, including the Council for Community and Economic Research, the U.S. Census Bureau, the Tax Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Here are the 10 worst states to retire, according to Bankrate.

Notably, Alaska ranks last in the weather category. Although temperatures in Alaska can range from 45 degrees to 75 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, they can sink as low as negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter.

Alaska can be an expensive place to live, especially for retirees with a fixed income. On average, the cost of living in Alaska is about 30% higher than the rest of the country, according to RentCafe. Housing costs are about 17% higher than the national average, and utilities and health-care expenses are both nearly 50% higher.

On the upside, Alaska can be a very tax-friendly location for retirees. The state doesn’t have income tax, estate taxes or inheritance taxes and doesn’t tax pension payments or retirement benefits from Social Security.

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Lack of affordability appears to be a common thread among the other low-ranking states on the list, which include New York, Washington and California — all known for being relatively pricey.

However, just because a state has a higher cost of living doesn’t necessarily mean you should write it off as a potential retirement destination. You may just need to plan to set aside more money for retirement than you would if you were planning to retire somewhere less expensive.

CNBC Make It’s retirement calculator can help you estimate how much you’ll need to save for retirement based on factors like your current age, savings, income and when you’d like to stop working.

And while living costs can be a key determinant in deciding where you may want to retire in the future, it’s also good to keep other non-financial aspects in mind. For example, access to social and community-building activities is an important, but often overlooked, consideration for retirees, according to Bankrate.

“Having that sense of community and human connection is huge to healthy aging,” Kerry Hannon, a retirement expert and Author of “In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work,” says in Bankrate’s study.

“Isolation and loneliness are not something you want to move toward, so look for your community,” she says.

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