Hello and Welcome to the JetBlast! Network. I have been an FAA Airframe and Powerplant mechanic for over 25 years and became president of PAMA in March 2000. During that time, I represented the interests of PAMA and the individual aviation maintenance professional on numerous government and industry issues, with the media, and throughout our memebership.

Beginning on New Year's Day 2008, my new position will be as the Director of Certification Standards for the SAE Institute where I will oversee the development and distribution of PAMA's and SAE's Aviation Maintenance Certification Program. I'll be giving up the PAMA presidency to an eminently qualified colleague at that time. My new duties promise a new and different excitement and an opportunity to grow and strengthen PAMA from the SAE side of the house.

Previously, I was the Manager of Air Safety Investigation for Textron Lycoming and a field Air Safety Investigator with Cessna Aircraft Co. Also, I worked as an accident reconstructionist for Materials Analysis, a private metallurgical and techncial analysis consulting firm.

I worked as an Airframe/Powerplant General (APG) Field Service Engineer for McDonnell Aircraft Co. on the F/A-18 fighter aircraft with the U.S. Marine Corp, the U.S. Navy, and with the Spanish Air Force. I earned my A&P Certificate and a B.S. in Aviation Maintenance Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, worked my way though school performing many jobs, including several years as an assistant instructor in both the Turbine Engine and Sheet Metal labs, and as a newly-minted Airframe Mechanic at Daytona Beach Aviation. I am a recreational pilot that learned aviation at the grass roots working the ramp in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and as an apprentice A&P in Massachusetts.

That's the work part. I have traveled extensively, am married with two children, and I hack around the course when I can. I jumped out a perfectly good airplane once (AFF - not tandem), worked the pits as a staff writer at the Daytona International Speedway during my college years, and spent a summer dragging for scallops out on George's Banks.

There's more, but that will cost you a beer. But I'll happily repay it for a chance to hear your story.

Thanks for being here!

http://haystack.cerado.com/profile/1447