I grew up in Calgary spending most of my time around airplanes with my father who owned flight schools and did some corporate flying as well.
My first job after graduating the Southern Alberta Institute of technology here in Calgary was in Northern Manitoba. At the time the company operated and I worked on Piper Navajos, Commanders and several Cessna 206 aircraft on floats in the summer and skis in the winter.
From 1996 until 2000, I worked for a company that sent me around the world in mobile repair units. They sent me to Pakistan to take care of a King air that flew for the UN, Maldives to take care of float planes on the Indian Ocean, Peru to take care of a Twin Otter that moved Oil company personnel between Cusco and Mazuco in the Amazon rain forest and various places in Canadian Arctic. I actually met my wife Gabriela while traveling for work in Peru in 1997. Gabriela worked for a local Cusco company that also operated aircraft into the Amazon.
Often we would have time to talk while waiting for the weather to improve in the morning before our aircraft would be able to fly into the forest. We spent those mornings getting to know each other. My Spanish was quite rough. I could speak enough to take a taxi or order a meal in a restaurant but getting to know someone was a new challenge, luckily Gabriela’s English was much better.
After a few months of dating, my opportunity to work in Peru came to an end. We would communicate via fax or email, in 1997 phone calls to Peru as well as internet were quite expensive – at the time we thought we were taking full advantage of technology which was different than today. Every few months one of us would fly to visit the other until we realized that dating for the two of us was quite difficult – we got engaged in July 2000 and married in Cusco Sept 22, 2001 a short time after the events of 9-11.
I have been with what is now called Take Flight Group since Jan 2008 but also once before in 2000 for 7 months. Through my career I have worked heavy maintenance, line maintenance, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, traveled the world on mobile repair units and even worked on WestJet’s first 737 200 series aircraft.
