The worlds of rocketry and hydroplane racing crashed together in Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Twitter feed today, and it’s all because of Jimmy Shane.
Shane’s workaday job title is integration engineer at Blue Origin, the rocket venture founded by Bezos and headquartered in Kent, Wash.
But Shane is also a second-generation thunderboat pilot. According to a Seattle Times profile, the Maryland native began racing boats at the tender age of 8.
Even though Shane relocated to the Seattle area, he still travels around the country as part of the H1 Unlimited Hydroplane league. This weekend, he’s the driver for Miss HomeStreet, the boat fielded by the Miss Madison Racing Team in the Albert Lee Appliance Seafair Cup competition on Lake Washington.
It just so happens that the trademark color for Miss HomeStreet, which is sponsored by Seattle-based HomeStreet Bank, is blue. So on Aug. 3, Shane showed off an artistic addition to the signature painted on his boat.
