Northwest Aerospace News August | September Issue No. 4 | Page 26

H
ojan and his wife Julie-Ann landed in Priest River in 2003 as family
became the priority. His first job was in a quick–lube, making minimum wage,
but one day he ran into Aerocet’s production manager at a fundraising carwash.
The Toronto-born Hojan said he started “bucking rivets building landing gear.”
He later became hardware manager, purchasing manager, head of operations
and two years ago became CEO.
“It was somewhere in the middle before I actually showed them my résumé,”
Hojan said, careful not to reveal the true extent of his experience. He is now VP
of a company that has 13,000 engineers and 243 offices worldwide.
Aerocet is unique in its market and the only current maker of composite floats,
although others have tried to dabble in it.
The smallest float they build is the 1500 Series, a 1,500-pound weight displace-
ment product. A Piper Super Cub, for instance, weighs in at about 2,200 pounds
and requires the equivalent float. Aerocet is currently in the process of proto-
typing a 13,000-pound, 32-foot long float for the Twin Otter.
The workforce runs the gamut from skilled labor to engineers. They are as
close to 100 percent self-contained as a business can be, producing virtually ev-
ery part imaginable from the tiniest nut or bolt to the massive floats and cargo
pods they sell worldwide.
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NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS