My Aviation Journey
Aviation has been my passion for over 20 years, since I first climbed into the left seat of a Cessna 152 on a cold fall afternoon. My aviation journey has blessed me with hundreds of hours of pure excitement while piloting aircraft around the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Central and Southern California, and the Cascade Mountains. I hold an FAA Commercial Pilot License with an Instrument Rating, as well as a Master of Science degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University.
More recently, I've started piloting Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS - more widely known as a drone!). The SUAS aircraft is a perfect platform to apply my piloting and aeronautical knowledge to another passion of mine: photography.
In my professional life, I am the manager of flight operations regulatory compliance for a major US airline, based out of Seattle, Washington. In this role, I am the lead subject matter expert regarding the Federal Register. This role monitors the Federal Register for changes to Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) and/or Operations Specifications (OpsSpecs) and informs and ensures each discipline at the airline has implemented changes as appropriate. As an individual contributor, this role manages numerous flight operations regulatory compliance and certificate management activities for the airline. This role represents the airline at Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Headquarters and the local Certificate Management Office (CMO) for guidance material used by industry to implement and maintain compliance requirements.