Rob McClendon: To say that Porsha Lippincott
had a bit of a rough take-off early on in life is an understatement. Homeless at 17 and literally living in a refrigerator
box, she was desperate for a new direction. And with some help from others and a lot of
initiative of her own, Porsha's life and career is now flying high at 50,000 feet. Rob McClendon: Teaching night students at
Metro Tech's Aviation Campus. Porsha Lippincott: And make sure you guys
are careful with those heating elements. Rob: It's easy to see instructor Porsha Lippincott
knows her way around a jet engine. Lippincott: Are you guys labeling each part
that you take out? Rob: But it's not always been that way. Homeless at 17, Porsha was living out of a
refrigerator box. Lippincott: I had just recently got a job
at Sonic, so every day I would sleep in the box and go to Sonic, come home, sleep in the
box, and I did it for three months. So one day, at Sonic, in the morning, I get
a phone call. It's a lady from Norman North, and she's a
counselor, and I kind of just broke down and told her everything that was going on. Well, she told me to stand by, and she would
call me right back. About five minutes later I got her and Bridges,
which is an independent homeless shelter for kids, who called saying that they wanted to
meet me that day. They showed me this cute little apartment
in this house that was all to myself and they told me, "This is where we want you to live,
go back to school, you could work, we'll help you get a car or whatever you need to do to
go to school." And that day, I moved in. Rob: And Porsha's life began to turn around
- a roof over her head and even saving some money. Lippincott: I found this '93 Jeep Grand Cherokee. It had like seven different colors going on,
but I was OK with it. I paid a $1,000 for it. It ran. There were some kind of sketchy things about
it, like the gas - I never knew when the gas was gonna run out because the meter was going
[back and forth motion]. But as time went on my car started to act
a lot different, and then it started to break down. And then one day, it just didn't start at
all. It was $1,907 to repair this oil pan gasket. At that time I had no idea what any of that
meant. I went on YouTube and I looked up what an
oil pan gasket was, and it was on a '93 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and they were showing how
you took off all these bolts - 27 of them, took down the oil pan, took off the gasket,
put a new one on, put the oil pan back up, bolted it down, put some oil in and you were
good to go. And I was like, that is, that's the most ridiculous
thing ever, I could do this. Seven hours later -- which nowadays it wouldn't
take me seven hours, but it did -- seven hours later I had my car running, and it actually
ran better than it did before. Rob: Turning a crisis into an opportunity. Lippincott: So I graduated high school and
got my high school diploma. When I got done, they had already filled out
paperwork for me to go to Moore Norman Technology Center to go and be a mechanic over there,
and I did. When I got done, I got my ASEs, so that was,
that was my whole getting out of being homeless and onto my own feet, with a cool certification. Rob: And while Porsha enjoyed working on cars
and trucks, life was still often a struggle. Lippincott: At the time, I was actually working
three jobs. Four hours of sleep was OK for me, but when
it became me being pregnant, I couldn't do four hours of sleep anymore. At that time I was put on some government
assisted programs, and they had referred me to come out to Metro Tech Aviation because
I already had automotive. When I enrolled, they told me about Metro
Tech's foundations. They had told me about welfare, some of the
welfare foundations, and I was able to get on almost every single one of them. So when I got out here, my tools, my books,
my certifications, my class - everything was paid for. All I had to do was come to school and learn
and then go home and be happy. Rob: And while school was paid for, it still
takes money to live. Lippincott: I mean, I still had bills that
I had to pay, and I didn't have a nighttime job because I really couldn't do that with
my son. While I was struggling, one of my teachers,
Mr. Hensley, told me that Metro Tech Foundation still had other benefits that I could benefit
from. He told me that they could help me pay for
gas and rent. So I called and told them the stuff that I
was going through. I proved to them that I was having a hard
time, and they helped me pay for rent, and they actually paid for my gas for a while. So I was able to go through school. I didn't have to get a second job. When I got done here, I had applied to Tinker
eight months before I got, I graduated here, and right when I graduated they sent me a
letter saying, "We'd like you to come work for us. Your start date is Oct. 6." And so Oct. 6, I started at Tinker. Rob: And Porsha's career took off. Lippincott: Other than the awesome amount
of money you could make -- which is awesome -- you have people that are grateful. You have pilots that will come shake your
hand. You have military people that respect you
because you are willing to put forth that effort to help make sure that these airplanes
fly and that they can support our war fighters. And I think that's the best feeling ever. If you put a lot of effort into this, you're
going to go far because people are going to appreciate you. You may not think so when you first get out
there, but they're going to appreciate you for what you've done. Rob: In fact, thanks to Porsha's suggestions,
mechanics at Tinker now use a different approach when repairing these simple electrical wires. Lippincott: Well, these wires, individually,
there is three on the inlets, and they cost roughly around, with the connectors, $3,000
a piece. So, and we were doing 12 to 20 inlets a month,
and we were cutting out every single one of them. What I had thought about was, why don't we
just a piece of fiberglass tape on it, and then wrap it with safety wire in a way that
couldn't come apart, and what it came out to it was $2.5 million dollars that I had
saved, and that's annually. And the fiberglass and the safety wire doesn't
cost anything, so, and now it's actually in the books as a repair. You know, thank you for helping me, now I'm
helping you back to all those people that have helped fund me in the long run. I know I can't just write them a big fat check
saying, oh, here's for all the years you've helped me. But hopefully, you know, if I can continue
to keep saving money at Tinker, it's just going to go right back in their pockets, and
they're going to be like, wow, I've made so much money this year. I'll just donate some more.
Your envy doesn't constitute a pussypass just because she's female. She was fortunate enough to confide in the right person about her situation and she worked hard to get where she is.
This thread is nonsense.
It's almost impossible for a young hot chick to be homeless today ,its not the same there will always be men willing to take care of and give them everything. Good for her though