Our cool jobs: gays and lesbians across the country talk about the cool jobs they have always had or the ones they went out and found.

Caren Chancey

Private investigator

T.J. Jung

Firefighter

BRISTOW, VA.

Caren Chancey and T.J. Jung may just be the coolest couple in northern Virginia, jobwise at least. Chancey is a private investigator in Manassas and Jung is a Fairfax County firefighter. The pair, who have been together three years and will both be 35 in July, share a three-story carriage home in a quaint suburban neighborhood.

Several years ago Chancey was selling cars for a living and hated the hours. One day she made a sale to a female PI. "I just sat there talking to her for a couple of hours," she says. "It's something that I always was interested in, looking in people's windows. So I asked her how she got started."

In 2002, Chancey started Background Brokers, an investigation firm specializing in background checks. While many of her clients are attorneys seeking discovery on court cases, burgeoning romantic relationships have proved to be a hot market. "We do a lot of background checks for people who have just started dating someone, especially if they've met them on the Internet," says Chancey. "We make sure they're not married and that they are who they say they are."

For Chancey, being a lesbian has been an on-the-job plus. "I spend a lot of time with men in a car for 24 or 48 hours on end, and I'm really just like one of the guys," she explains. "That's how they treat me, and that's how I prefer it." Likewise, job security is never a problem. "Unfortunately, people are always going to do bad things," she says. "I get new cases every day. It's thrilling, really. It's a constant adrenaline rush."

Adrenaline plays a big roll in Jung's career as well. Ten years ago she joined the Dale City Volunteer Fire Department in Virginia, where she discovered a passion for "running calls." "On my very first day I responded to a multitrauma car accident and loved the adrenaline rush," says Jung, who then applied to Fairfax County Fire and Rescue, where she now works at Fire Station 20. "When I first entered the fire department it was difficult, because [the men] weren't familiar with gay women at the station aside from what they saw in porn movies," says Jung. "But after they got to know me, everything fell into place. When you spend 24 hours a day, 10 days per month, with people you become family whether you like it or not."

Making a difference in people's lives is the most rewarding part of being a firefighter, says Jung, but the excitement doesn't hurt. "My favorite calls to respond to are trauma calls because I perform best under pressure," she says.

Despite the fact that as a firefighter she's living the fantasy of generations of American youths, Jung says that when she was 6 years old she wanted to be a pirate.

Dave Willoughby

Environmental engineer

SACRAMENTO

Before anyone can cut timber in California's Central Valley, first they have to get past Dave Willoughby But it's not because he's an activist. As an environmental engineer for the state of California, the 42-year-old Willoughby wields a mighty power that can make or break rampant corporate wood lust.

"Basically, I work with logging companies to mitigate their timber-cutting so they don't affect wildlife," says Willoughby. "I go out in the woods with whoever the proponent is--usually it's a forester--and look at what they're proposing to do. I have to be an engineer, a biologist, and a geologist."

A logging company might want to clear-cut on a steep slope above where salmon are spawning or put in a road that might cause a landslide, Willoughby says. "I tell them what I think they need to do in order to keep from affecting the environment," he says. "If they don't want to do it, it turns into a big fight, and I end up spending a month dragging them down to the carpet and beating them up."

Willoughby, who's currently single and lives in a small town near the state capital, was unsatisfied with his previous career as an aerospace engineer, so he returned to school to get his masters degree in environmental law. That's when he discovered environmental engineering. "I used to just sit there and manufacture things," Willoughby says. "Now I get to be outside all day and have a positive effect on the environment."--D.A.

Deborah Scott

Executive chef

SAN DIEGO 

Acclaimed San Diego executive chef and restaurateur Deborah Scott understands the connection between guest and host in the restaurant business, and it's helped her achieve success. "It's a very personal thing, feeding people," she says. "When you think about it, it's something that they're putting into their body, and they're trusting in you to do things right."

Scott, 51, has been doing things right for over a decade in the San Diego area, beginning with Kemo Sabe, an upscale restaurant in the city's predominantly gay Hillcrest area, and followed four years ago by her Little Italy eatery, Indigo Grill. In June she will launch two new epicurean ventures, Sea Level Lounge and Island Prime, both on Harbor Island.

Scott, who lives with her partner of 11 years, Sharon, a 44-year-old pastry chef and real estate agent, still serves as executive chef for all four locations, though running her business has recently taken priority. "Normally an executive chef has full hands-on control of the kitchen," she says. "They do all the ordering, hiring, firing, and maintaining of the flow. But for myself, it's a little bit different, because I have four different venues. I am an owner first."

While being a head chef may seem like the coolest part of her job, Scott really enjoys spending time in the dining rooms to ensure that her guests are happy. "I have a hospitality thing because I'm from the South," says Scott, who grew up in Virginia. "I'm very good with people. I love all the guests and people that I've met and friends that I've made through the restaurants."

And as for her sexuality, Scott says, "I guess you don't let it be an obstacle for yourself. You put yourself out there."--D.A.

Dave Cobb

Theme park and attraction designer

LOS ANGELES 

Dave Cobb is among the lucky few who can say they are in the business of creating thrills. As senior creative director for North American theme park giant Paramount Parks, Cobb, 35, is both idea man and overseer; his projects include the design and construction of new roller coasters and other thrill rides. Working with a vast army of engineers, architects, graphic and media artists, industrial designers, landscapers, and plumbers, Cobb says his main role is "to see the 'big picture' of a project and work with everyone involved to create a memorable experience."

Cobb's foray into the theme park business began about 20 years ago when he took a job as a Universal Studios tour guide. "I've always been a fan of any sort of spectacle, ever since I was a kid," he says. "Dark rides, carnivals, world's fairs, anything real and tangible yet larger-than-life and fantastic. And of course, growing up in L.A., I spent every possible free moment at Disneyland, which was like a real-world study for me."

Cobb's current projects include The Italian Job Stunt Track (a launch coaster inspired by the film's Mini Cooper chase scene), opening this summer at Paramount Kings Island in Ohio and Paramount Canada's Wonderland. Pleasing an audience, Cobb says, gives him the same thrill one might get from riding one of his attractions. "Watching people at the exit of a ride you've worked on--all smiles and laughs, wanting to get right back in line to ride it again--makes it very worthwhile."

Cobb, who lives with his partner of almost 10 years, Jason, a 36-year-old hotelier, says his sexuality has been an occupational asset. "I think being gay gives you a certain appreciation of tone and spirit and the intangibles of design and how to get right to the heart of what's right in a project," he says.--D.A.

Pauline M. Cormier

Chain saw artist

WEST YELLOWSTONE, MONT.

Pauline Cormier had long been irresistibly drawn to the popular animal wood carvings she saw in gift shops across the northern Rocky Mountain states. "But I couldn't justify the cost," Cormier explains. "So I pretty much just got the tools and taught myself."

So began Wild Wood Creation, the company Cormier, 42, now runs with her partner of six years, Bonnie, who also works as a part-time naturalist at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center near the couple's home in West Yellowstone, at Yellowstone National Park's western entrance. "What makes chain saw carving fun for me is that it can be challenging, but it stills my mind, and it stimulates my creative side," says Cormier. "Best of all, the carvings make people smile, and they deepen my appreciation of nature and wildlife. And if I screw up on a carving, it becomes firewood, so it's never wasted."

Wild Wood now offers a wide variety of handcrafted products, from wall plaques to home furnishings, as well as the small wolf, bear, and raccoon figurines that started it all. Regardless of its size and final shape, virtually every piece begins with a block of wood and a chain saw. "For the detailed work I'll start off with a chain saw, then go down with a lot smaller, finer tools," Cormier says.

Before beginning her wood-carving career, Cormier practiced neuromuscular therapy for many years, helping people relieve chronic pain with a cross between soft-tissue work and physical therapy. Now she does both jobs, and as "West Yollowstone's only carving therapist," she's found a motto that sums up her talents: "There's no knot I can't get rid of." "It's a good balance," she says. "I get my right brain fixed with the carving, my left brain with the neuromuscular therapy."--D.A.

Kit Karbler

Glassware artisan

DENVER

"The first thing that most people say when they come into my studio is 'How wonderful it must be to do what you truly like to do,'" says Kit Karbler of Blake Street Glass, a Denver-based fine art--glass studio he cofounded 25 years ago with friends and fellow artisans Michael David and Miguel Guzman. Aside from its line of fine art sculptures, Blake Street's more utilitarian products range from small items, such as bottles and paperweights, to larger things like tables and sinks.

"As I work with the hot glass, after 30 years I am still awed by its ability to fascinate and offer fresh possibilities with each moment," says the 50-year-old Karbler. "One of the coolest things about my job is that it attracts young and old alike, and they have a sense of the intense energy that it takes to not only melt the glass but also to create objects from it, using techniques that are thousands of years old."

Karbler shares a classic mid-century ranch home in central Denver with his partner of six years, Dmitri, 31, and their dog, Macy. "She also has a job greeting people at the studio," he says. Dmitri, a Ukraine native, has always helped out with routine duties at the studio, but lately he's also become more involved in the creative side of the business. "In the last year he has decided that he likes assisting me in the hot shop, where we blow the glass, and also in the cold shop, where we cut and polish the glass into its final form," Karbler says. "I adore him for it, and others marvel at his gift in achieving the final product. We enjoy working together and have been able to do it without hurting our relationship. If anything, we have a greater respect for each other."--D.A.