The PNBAA Maintenance Committee provides aviation maintenance professionals in the Pacific Northwest Region an avenue to network with one another, expand their knowledge with training, and grow together to be a more cohesive group. This group typically meets as a group once a quarter in the Pacific Northwest region. This group is typically made up of directors of maintenance, aircraft technicians, aircraft inspectors, service providers, industry related vendors and also pilots. So far, we have conducted four PNBAA Maintenance Luncheons over the last year. The group has collectively elected to meet within some of the corporate aviation hangars based at Boeing Field Airport. Everyone likes to see the inside of some of these beautiful hangars that they usually only drive by coming to work. This format also keeps this group working on a minimal budget. Some of the contributing hangars to these luncheons have been American Avionics/Ashton Aviation, Nordstrom’s Corporate Flight Department, and Clay Lacy Aviation. With sponsors coming in as well to sponsor a luncheon, we have been able to keep all PNBAA Maintenance Luncheons completely free of charge to all participants.
Some of the sponsors that we have had so far are American Avionics at Boeing Field Airport in Seattle, Global Aviation in Hillsboro, Oregon and Aircell, based in Broomfield, Colorado. As this group has progressed, many other potential sponsors are stepping up in the future to cover the costs of future luncheons. We look forward to expanding these luncheons to larger groups, as we have had growing attendance at each event, with some reaching just shy of 100 attendees. We have had many interested parties volunteer in taking part in future events. As always, these events can only take place with the involvement and participation of our members and other related participants. We welcome any feedback for future events, as well as any ideas for subject matter for future events. Obviously, the subject matter for these luncheons should relate to the day to day duties of our aviation maintenance professionals. They are meant to be informative and helpful to the understanding of current issues evolving in our industry.
One other major benefit of these luncheons and various PNBAA gatherings is the obvious networking potential this presents to all participants. It seems that everyone gets involved in their day to day duties in their jobs and rarely takes the opportunity to fraternize with others that share the same job within different flight departments. Our luncheons provide the opportunity for old friends to re-unite and for new people in the area to get to know some of their neighbors. Some of these people have even been able to network through these luncheons to assist them in finding new employment, when they’ve been dealt the unfortunate hand of finding themselves out of work.
Some of the subject matter data that we have covered so far in past luncheons has been:
Avionics Acronyms – The Latest and Greatest and What’s Coming
Getting Your Business Aircraft Online
Presentations for these past topics are attached in the presentations below. Please feel free to refer to these presentations for future reference, as these subjects are discussed among your flight department or company.
Some of the future plans for the PNBAA Maintenance Committee Luncheons or other events include:
An Update from Brad Townsend, National NBAA Maintenance Committee Chairman. Brad works as the Director of Maintenance for Sprint in Kansas City, MO. He will be making a future presentation about what’s going on with NBAA’s Maintenance Committee on a national level.
An Update from Eli Cotti, who runs the Maintenance Committee of the Chicago NBAA Regional Group.
We are also looking into the expansion of conducting one or more of these events in other cities in the Pacific Northwest, rather than just Seattle, as we do have participants from other cities coming to our events. We look forward to being able to branch out into different cities within the Oregon and Washington areas.
Please feel free to contact Darwin Stout, PNBAA Maintenance Committee Chairman via the contact information below for any further information or to submit any feedback on how PNBAA can better serve you, our members.
Darwin Stout
PNBAA Maintenance Committee Chairman
Cell: 206-954-8657
E-Mail: darwin.stout@gulfstream.com
Aircell – Getting Your Business Aircraft Online Seminar – Las Vegas
PNBAA Seattle – Avionics Acronyms – 3-23-2010
