Five years after retiring from General Motors, Kevin Davies of Clarkston was up for a part-time gig to supplement his pension.
“I was looking for a hobby job ? even cutting the grass,” said Davies, whose name is pronounced the British way, “Davis.”
Working with technology his entire life, he found something fitting the bill online ? Uber, the San Francisco-based ride sharing program using smart phones to connect drivers with riders.
“There was a lot of press about it, so I looked into it,” he said. “It was fairly simple.”
After a background check and vehicle inspection, he was approved and is now online as an Uber driver, but only when he wants to.
“If I’m feeling under the weather, I just don’t go online,” he said. “It’s interesting to meet people I wouldn’t normally meet.”
Uber users book rides through the smart phone app. When they want a ride, they log on and the app searches for available drivers in the area. If Davies is online, the system would match them up and the rider would have the opportunity to book it. So far, he hasn’t booked many rides in Clarkston, but there have been some in Auburn Hills.
He has lived in the Deer Lake subdivision for 28 years with his wife, Trish, who will also soon retire from her job with the Independence Elementary before- and after-school program.
They raised two sons, Rick, who lives in Rochester Hills with his wife, Karen, also of Clarkston; and Simon, who lives in Orchard Lake Village with his wife, Michelle, of Lake Orion.
“When I moved in, it was a sleepy town, a car every few minutes on Main Street,” Kevin Davies said. “Now, it’s unbelievable, very busy.”
He grew up in England, and worked in the aerospace industry on computer aided analysis before moving to the United States in 1982 to work with General Motors.
He retired in 2009, then worked in the defense industry on military vehicles until retiring again in 2012.
“With Uber, I’m still in the automotive industry,” he said.