This is an excerpt from the book, “My Journey From Aircraft A&P to CEO.”
After my son, Ryan, was born, I decided to stop flying so that I could spend more time at home. He was crawling when I left on a trip to Iran, but when I returned five weeks later, I discovered that he was walking. It really showed me what I was missing by being away from home so often and so long. So, I made my mind up that I didn’t want to fly anymore.
I loved the job and the people I served as passengers as well as the people I worked with all over the world. But, when I decided to give up flying, I was done. There were some passengers who really wished I would escort them on their trips, but I just lost passion for that aspect of my job.
I also realized that I was giving up a lot of other opportunities because I was traveling so much. Each year I had been flying, several people had requested that I transfer to their departments or, if they rented the jet, that I come to work at their companies. When I expressed interest, they would follow-up with a formal interview. But, something would always happen where the opportunity simply evaporated and I never understood why because they were so enthusiastic about having me come to work for them. Eventually, the offers stopped coming. It was as though nobody was interested in having me work for them.
I thought that was strange, until Robert Elder, a retired Navy admiral and senior board member with the Northrop Corporation explained that Bob Jones, the president of Northrop, had put word out that I was off limits. After Mr. Jones learned that I interviewed for another position, he would put an end to any attempts to transfer me to a different job.
Apparently, Mr. Jones was appreciative of how well I served his wife, Ruth, whenever she would accompany us on a trip. I was often the person asked to accompany her wherever she wanted to go. They both had such high respect for me and my professionalism that they didn’t want to lose me. However, that opened my eyes to the fact I was never going to advance anywhere further in my career as long as I worked for Northrop as a flight engineer.
I was sniffing around for opportunities outside of Northrop. One day, I was flying to South America with Welko Gasich, who was the vice president of Northrop’s Aircraft Division, and his wife, Pat. He asked if I would ever consider working for his division, but I explained the situation to him. He really sympathized with my desire to spend more time at home with my wife and young son.
“You don’t have to leave Northrop,” said Mr. Gasich. “I will hire you in my division. I’m not scared of Mr. Jones! Consider this your last trip as a flight engineer.”
He got the ball rolling and, a few weeks later, I was flying with Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Shortly after taking off, I made him a cup of his favorite Earl Gray tea and took it back to him in the cabin. As I approached, he put his paper down and said, “So, you’re leaving us.” Until then, he had been giving me a kind of cool reception. I told him, “Yes, sir. I product support to answer maintenance questions about F-5s that Northrop’s technicians in the field may have.” We talked for a few moments and then he simply said, “Well, you’re going to have to tell Mrs. Jones.”
Fortunately, she was very understanding and they both wished me well in my new endeavor working in product support as a service engineer answering technical questions from mechanics around the world who worked on F-5 fighter jets. That was literally my final trip as a flight engineer.
I know that Mr. Jones really appreciated me as an employee because I ensured that his plane was ready to fly whenever he wanted to go somewhere. All the years we flew together, I never left him stranded anywhere. I also got to know the other executives fairly well, too. I maintained a personal log about what they liked to eat and drink so that I could have that ready for them after we took off. I took very good care of all my passengers, especially the ones I flew with regularly.
I liked flying and I liked serving aboard the Gulfstream jet, but I think being with my children as they grew up was far more important. I could always return to flying when the children were older, but they needed me now.
A new career in product support
My first day in my new position, the senior engineer, Jim Young, asked what systems I felt comfortable supporting. I told him anything but guns, so he assigned me to provide product support for aircraft engines and hydraulic systems, like landing gears.
I worked with a crew who worked hard, but liked to have a lot of fun, too. In fact, the second day I came to work and found my desk chair wound as far to the ground as it could go. Then, the next day, Vern Twyman and Skip Davies, wound my chair all the way up as far as it would go. Another time, they rigged my desk drawer with rubber bands so that when I opened it, the drawer would slam shut and throw my things all over the desk. They really made me feel welcome and I became close friends with several of those coworkers.
It was a desk job and I was pretty much confined to an office, but I had set office hours and I was home every night. All the work was done on the phone whenever technicians had a problem which they couldn’t solve by themselves, they would speak to me and I’d either help them troubleshoot the issue or advise them on what to do to fix the problem.
Before I could settle into the job, I had to take more advanced training on the F-5 and its various components. Because of my background, it didn’t take a lot of time for me to get up to speed on how the system operated. Surprisingly, the Gulfstream was a more complex system than the F-5. Because they have to be battle ready at all times, the military jet is more straightforward to understand and easier to maintain
I also worked as a liaison with other departments so that if there was a problem I couldn’t help solve, then I would get with engineering quality control or other senior technicians to iron out the problem and develop a solution that I could put back in the hands of our tech reps. The field techs were very appreciative of our assistance because they were often on the flight line all by themselves.
Every air force base that had an F-5 fighter had at least one technician tasked with keeping the jet operational and available to use. The jets were located in 35 countries around the world. The F-5s may have been on U.S. Air Force bases or used by the armed forces of America’s allies.
I was fortunate to have been able to meet most of those techs when I was flying around the world in the Gulfstream. While the executives were traveling to those countries to discuss aircraft business and write orders for new equipment, I would be hanging out in the break room with the technicians waiting for my passengers to return.
As a result, I got to know many of the techs who later went on to be directors of maintenance at their airports. Many years later, when I was running an aircraft window repair business, those contacts and my relationship with them proved to be invaluable in building my business. I had a name and a face. They knew and remembered me. I made sure to send them one of my first brochures.
The technicians were also representatives of Northrop so it was important to be good to them because our company’s reputation was based on our ability to keep planes flying. It was essential that we keep those technicians happy and well supported.