Q&A with Steve Vincent, When Faith Lights the Way
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Where did you grow up /live now?
My family could easily have been the model for the Cleavers on the Leave it to Beaver television show, except it was just Dad, Mom, and me. The year after I was born in 1951, my parents purchased a house in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas—not in the upscale part of Oak Cliff, but in the more spartan Dallas Park area. The small homes there were constructed during World War II to provide housing for workers at the North American factory, which built B-24 bombers like the ones my dad flew. My mother was a full-time mom until I reached junior high, when she took a job in circuit-board assembly. A year later she became the Court Clerk for the City of Cockrell Hill, Texas.
My early life was filled with school, scouting, football, baseball, and lots of boy stuff. Scouting was big part of my childhood and my character development. I acquired many arrow points and achieved Eagle Scout level, the God and Country award, and the Order of the Arrow award, granted to scouts who best lived the Scout Oath and Laws.
My football career really isn’t worth mentioning except in the ways it shaped my character. I started playing in the fifth grade as a running back, and it wasn’t until the eighth grade that it occurred to me I was probably too small to be playing. But I wasn’t going to let my size stop me. Given a chance, I knew I could be a good player. I got that chance one day in practice. When it was my turn to run the ball, I gave it all I had. Coach yelled, “That’s what I want!” I did it over and over again. The result was that I got to start in that week’s game, and it was the only game we didn’t lose that year. All I needed was a chance. I did earn two high school varsity letters in football, but my lack of size for a football player always hindered me in athletics. My football career instilled an attitude of “never give up despite the odds” and a strong belief in myself.
Church or religion was not a big part of my family’s life in my early childhood. We sporadically visited churches but did not attend regularly until our Cub Scout Pack parents invited us to Irwindell United Methodist Church in Dallas. Irwindell UMC was a small, warm church family that became our church home. I played on the church softball team and sang in the youth choir. Irwindell UMC parents looked after all the kids, not just their own, and at times they disciplined all of us, too.
My personal growth and choices in life probably have more to do with the influence of Irwindell UMC than I realize. I learned the traditional Southern values of love of God and country and the importance of glorifying God.
My parents were both handy, and I learned to be, too. We did all the upkeep of our modest eight-hundred—eventually expanded to eleven-hundred—square-foot house. There was always a project that kept me pretty busy at home. My dad and I, with help from the neighbors, put on a new roof after a hailstorm. We painted our house inside and out several times. Our house didn’t have a concrete driveway, so my family poured one. We installed “swamp coolers” to cool the house, but later changed them out for wall-mounted air conditioners. I learned quite a lot from working with my dad and mom all those years.
With my extracurricular activities and home projects, we didn’t have the time or money to be world travelers. But we did like to explore the scenic treasures and historical landmarks closer to home. Travel in our family consisted of loading up the car and driving to exciting places around Texas, like the beach in Galveston, Garner State Park in Uvalde, the Battleship Texas in Houston, and the Alamo. Once we ventured out of state to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
When I turned sixteen, I got a part-time job with the City of Cockrell Hill, where my mother worked. Cockrell Hill is a small town, only one square mile, surrounded by Dallas. That summer was filled with new, exciting adventures. David Thompson, a friend, and fellow Cub Scout, got a job there, too, so it was a lot of fun. Our work crew was three full-time and three summer employees who were black, Hispanic and white. I read water meters, learned to drive and operate a tractor with a front-end loader and a backhoe, operated a jackhammer, picked up garbage, and drove the six-gear, manual-transmission dump truck. I spread asphalt and tar for road repair jobs.
The city employees were so resourceful and innovative, and they could reason out solutions that were not taught in school. They worked hard in all kinds of weather situations. They were humble and proud of the job they did. They were always there for each other—a band of brothers. My experience working and bonding with those guys would influence my attitude toward people. We are all children of God. No one is superior or inferior. Education level, money, color, or sex don’t matter. Heart matters.
During my senior year in high school, a friend and fellow Scout, Delman Alsabrook, was injured in a car accident when he was thrown from a car. He was in a coma for weeks. David Thompson and I wanted to help his family any way that we could. We came up with the idea to coordinate a team of friends to be on hand to take care of any chore the family needed to be done. Within the first week, we had over three hundred volunteers.
Perhaps that was the moment when service to others became a part of the person I was growing into. These kinds of actions and decisions are defining moments, or “fork in the river” moments. I had no way to know that the decision to serve and uplift Delman’s family in such a meaningful way would be repeated a few times in my lifetime, and at an even greater scale.
The first time I moved from the house where I was born was when I went to school at Texas A&M University. After four years of dorm living, I graduated and went to work for Allis Chalmers. I was only with them about nine months but moved to Houston, Pittsburg, and finally Gadsden, Alabama. My dream job suddenly was available with Priester Supply in Arlington, Texas and I jumped at the opportunity. I lived in Arlington for forty-three years, retiring there.
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Currently, my wife and I live in Bryan, Texas, which is almost touching the campus of Texas A&M University. This is an ideal place for us to be just the right distance from our two daughters and two grandchildren who live in Houston.
When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? Or what first inspired you to write?
Writing When Faith Lights the Way was possibly more difficult for me than electrifying an African Hospital that was devastated by war. I was educated as an engineer, and my career was in engineering sales. I grazed the edge of writing the times when writing sales proposals and presentations.
I was inspired to write by the people who would come up to me after hearing the presentation on electrifying this hospital that was on a piece of land equal to 781 football fields. “What a great and inspiring story! You should write a book!” was said over and over by people after hearing the story.
To me, so many miraculous things helped us do our work. We were just ordinary people who followed that voice inside. The voice inside convinced me that telling the story might someone else to start on their quest.
What do you think makes a good story?
I love stories about people that gave their all and defied the odds. Stories about the brave people in World War II that saved us, explorers that stretched our world when others were afraid, or never say quit inventors that make our world a better place.
Is there a message/theme in your book that you want readers to grasp?
Within each of us, there is a quest. A quiet voice that encourages us to stretch our limits. All of us are ordinary people, but some follow this voice and great things result.
When Faith Lights the Way is the story of average people, facing impossible obstacles, who kept focused on their calling. Its purpose is to encourage and inspire you to follow your passion and purpose.
If your book was turned into a movie, who would you like to play the main characters?
My choice to play me in the movie When Faith Lights the Way is Robert Taylor who played Sheriff Walt Longmire in the Netflix series Longmire. Even though he was born in Australia, he completely transforms into a resourceful, roughhewn but educated, introspective man from the Western United States.
Steve Vincent was a successful businessman whose first career spanned thirty-four years in the electric utility industry. In his second career, his efforts have been redirected to provide state of the art electric systems to improve the health and education to the neediest people in the world. Steve’s extensive experience in logistics while working with U.S. electric power systems has made this unique contribution to mankind possible. Steve has a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Texas A&M University.
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