Avionics News March 2022 - 60

MEET THE NOMINEES
Continued from page 58
help the company advance in the
future.
Temple Electronics has been an
active member of the AEA since the
company opened in 1973. Temple
Electronics sponsors the Marshall
Temple scholarship through the AEA
Educational Foundation.
Andrew Zeigler
Eagle Avionics -
West Columbia, South Carolina
Andy Zeigler began his career in
general aviation in 2004 as a line
service representative for Skyward Air
Service in Seymour, Indiana. Skyward
Air Service was a full-service FBO
with fuel and aircraft maintenance.
Zeigler showed mechanical and
electrical skills to owner Matt Lykins
while working on the fuel trucks.
With these skills, he transitioned into
helping the A&P mechanics work on
the airplanes in for maintenance.
In 2005, Skyward Air Service started
a Part 145 repair station
for avionics. At this
time, a retired Air Force
avionics technician was
hired to run the avionics
shop, but he abruptly
retired leaving Lykins
without an avionics technician. After
having a hard time finding a technician,
Lykins turned in-house for a technician
and discovered Zeigler had an
abundance of electronic and electrical
experience from his days in vocational
electronics classes in high school and
college. Zeigler's boss offered him a
position as an avionics technician.
For his first avionics installation, he
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had to install a full stack of Garmin
equipment in the radio stack of an old
Piper Aztec. Lykins ensured he had
all of the current manuals printed so
that Zeigler could research the project
and study it before beginning. After
studying the manuals, he ordered all the
installation supplies needed. Then came
the time to begin the project. Zeigler sat
in the Piper Aztec and looked around
at all the old equipment he would have
to remove, and the intimidation factor
set in. He wasn't sure where to begin.
After staring for a bit, he took the
plunge and began to figure out how
to take radios and instruments out of
the panel and began removing wire.
It took him a long time to finish this
project since it was his first avionics
installation. When all was said and
done, Zeigler powered everything up
and no smoke came rolling out from
behind the instrument panel. After he
had everything programmed and tested,
he had discovered that everything
worked as it should.
After that first successful installation,
For
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60 avionics news * march 2022
Zeigler would continue to grow and
develop his skills and knowledge of
avionics. He worked for Skyward Air
Service as the lead avionics technician
until 2009, when he was offered a
position at Eagle Avionics (a oneman
shop) as the manager and chief
inspector in Columbus, Indiana, his
hometown. He took the position in
February 2009 and continued to work
and help grow the business until he
purchased Eagle Avionics from Bob
Voelz in December 2011, and he still
owns and operates it to this day. Zeigler
has expanded the business tenfold since
then. He also moved Eagle Avionics
Continued on page 62
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