A married father of two who super-commutes from Texas to Arizona for his job credits his military background – and his understanding family – for making the lengthy travel manageable.
Dennis Dabney, who resides in Fort Worth, has been flying to Phoenix for work since he scored a promotion at his company in 2022, according to a Business Insider report.
The 57-year-old program director and his family initially moved to the Lone Star State in 2019 when the company asked him to relocate from Virginia.
But when the promotion meant working out of Phoenix, Dabney refused to force his two teenage kids, as well as his 88-year-old mother who lives with the family, to move again.
Instead, he and his wife decided he would buy an apartment in Phoenix and live there during the week, flying back home on most weekends with a low-cost airline like Spirit or Frontier to the tune of $20,000 yearly.
Every other Friday when he has off, Dabney books a two-and-a-half-hour flight home and sometimes his family will visit him in Arizona.
“I couldn’t do this without the support of my family and my wife,” he told Business Insider. “And that has been crucial to decisions that I’ve made over the years about where to go and where to work.”
The dad also said it’s necessary to have “open communication” with family members.
“Things change, attitudes change, and you just have to figure out when things are getting out of hand or when things are going smoothly,” he told the publication.
Before this super-commute, Dabney drove five hours weekly to Louisiana for a different position at the company, but was back home on weekends for family time.
The family was used to hopping around considering Dabney spent 26 years in the Air Force.
“We moved quite a bit, but after we got to Texas, I got a clear signal from my family that they didn’t want to move anymore,” he told the outlet.
He credits his background in the Air Force that made the latest super-commute as seamless as possible because he’s used to frequent travel.
“It’s just my mindset, my background, and how to leverage all of that and learn how to create the quality of life that I want,” he told the outlet.
Overall, he called the experience “very gratifying.”