Once, I was able to enter the Wardair hangar and explore under their 747. The immensity left me in awe and wanting so much more to be in the presence of these great birds,
My brother worked for Gateway Aviation out of Edmonton in the early 1980s, and once, while in Edmonton, I flew in the cockpit jump seat of a Convair 640 all the way back to Toronto. What an indelible experience for a tween!
As a young adult, I worked for Delta reservations and with American Airlines as an aircraft service technician and de-icer. Is it wrong that I love the smell of avgas in the morning?
My career took a turn into business management, which was mostly outside of aviation but with a little in aviation product approvals, as a business turnaround executive.
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It seems I had a knack for taking business divisions of global product testing laboratories that were bleeding money and turning them into the company’ s“ golden child” of profitability.
I met my wife online during this time, way before eHarmony and the like. I have always had side businesses in manufacturing, retail, and services, and this one was building websites back in the days before chat support. I was investigating how to build commercial chat support from the private chat programs that were in their infancy and happened across“ The Girl for Me” while not even looking. This January will be twenty-nine years for us.
In 1997 I moved from Ottawa, Ontario, to San Jose, CA, to be with my bride. Six years later, we decided to move closer to family and settled in Priest River, Idaho, a city of about 1,800.
There are not many executive jobs in a small town, so I took a job at Aerocet, the world’ s only certified composite aircraft float manufacturer. I bucked rivets and built landing gear for their amphibious floats. I loved working for the company and worked my way through almost every position to finally becoming CEO for a few years.
I worked for Aerocet for sixteen-plus years. Before I moved on, we went from laying off every fall to steady income and financial stability, including diversification into aerospace contract manufacturing. Aerocet has amazing products and a great team that truly contributes not only to aerospace but also to the community at large.
While at Aerocet, I worked on developing the industry and workforce within Idaho. I co-founded the Idaho Aerospace Alliance and served as past president, vice president, and advisor. The Idaho Manufacturing Alliance now