Avionics News March 2021 - 59

S T O R Y

B Y

D A V E

f you master all the technical aspects of maintaining
some types of aircraft and become the expert in your
shop, you may find yourself becoming the director of
maintenance. The next question is, will you have the proper
skill set to keep the job?
As it turns out, technical wizardry may get you the director of
maintenance job but being able to deftly manage people on your
team who have a variety of personalities and skills is likely to help
you keep it and advance even further up the ladder.
Directors of maintenance outlined what it takes to advance
in the career field in a recent panel titled,
" Beyond the A&P Ticket: The Expanded
Role of Today's Modern Business Aviation
Maintenance Professional. "
The panel was part of the National
Business Aviation Association's Virtual
Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition on Dec. 2-3, 2020, the first of its type
ever. Stewart D'Leon, NBAA's newly
appointed director of technical operations,
led the discussion with directors of maintenance from the Disney Aviation Group,
Nike Flight, and AbbVie, as well as with
the vice president of fleet maintenance at
Executive Jet Management.
The constant advent of new technology surrounding the job is one challenge
everyone faces in the career field, but
especially senior maintenance technicians
who started in a different era.
Airframe and powerplant mechanics who entered the industry
when paper was still king have to constantly adjust to the digital
revolution that is second nature to new hires in the millennial
generation. " When I started in the industry, it was paper manuals, paper wiring diagrams and paper logbook entries, " D'Leon
said. " That was pretty normal. But what we've seen is a pretty big
transition to online and all electronic manuals. "
With long-tenured employees or more-recently hired employees already aboard and new hires joining periodically, there are
a variety of mindsets on how to use technology, according to
Andrew Kiehl, vice president of fleet maintenance for Executive
Jet Management. Kiel is also secretary of the NBAA maintenance
committee. He said there was a time when boxes and boxes of pa-

H U G H E S

per records had to be handed over when an aircraft was sold, but
now the paperless logbooks can be handed over during a pre-purchase inspection on a thumb drive. " It's kind of mind shattering, "
said Kiehl, who added he is excited and " cautiously optimistic " as
the industry enters a new age of technology.
At Nike Flight where Shannon Hotchkin is director of aviation
maintenance, she echoed the caution expressed by Kiehl. Hotchkin said she is a democratic manager and likes to hear what members of her team think about new things. " I, like many others in
our industry, come from a world of paper publications where you
go to that page in the manual and it is missing because someone ripped it out, " she
said with amusement. So she is constantly
asking her team members what they think
about new technology before they go ahead.
She also likes running a " dual line process "
for a while until the department achieves
competence with the new process. " I don't
necessarily advocate for change just for the
sake of change, " she added.
D'Leon started as an avionics technician and acknowledged that, to this day, he
has a hard time with working on multiple
screens looking at wiring diagrams. " I
would prefer stretching everything out on
the table, gather everyone around, and let's
all troubleshoot this together, " he said.
Fern Campos is now director of maintenance at Disney Aviation Group, but when
he started in the industry there was a room
at the facility where he worked filled with volumes and manuals
called the library. " You could stack the volumes 10 feet high; now
I have a thumb drive, and it is literally all here, " he said.
" For a lot of it, we really don't have a choice, because the
manufacturers have inevitably gone from paper to digital via PDF
or whatever format they use to distribute information, " Campos
said. " So we have had to adapt. " But that doesn't mean a shop has
to use 12-by-14-inch screens to work with digital wiring diagrams
when it can install 46-by-50-inch monitors and have printers
available capable of handling large sheets of paper. At Disney,
Campos said he has gone from having most documents start with

" ...EGO IS SUCH
A BARRIER
TO LEADING...
LEADERSHIP
IS ABOUT
MOTIVATING
EMPLOYEES,
INSPIRING THEM
AND CREATING AN
ALIGNMENT TO
THE MISSION. "

Continued on following page
avionics news

march

2021

Avionics News March 2021

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