Part of the crew flying a Challenger 604 & Hawker 850xpi.

Getting back into the flying routine with a great family owned charter company. The missions are either for delivering passengers to their desired location as the charter business requires, taking medical teams on short notice call-outs to hospitals for donor organ retrieval and bringing them back to Phoenix, or flying medical patients from one hospital to another.

Busy handling the daily responsibilities of directing numerous projects as seventeen employees go through the process of collecting 3D data per various clients' unique specifications. Some projects require only planimetric capture of visible features because a separate LiDAR data set can provide the digital terrain model (dtm) information. Other projects require both planimetric and dtm data to be captured from stereo imagery. Sometimes projects require only 2D feature capture for ortho-imagery products. Another collection technique is limited feature capture when the data source comes from LiDAR stereo pairs. These stereo models have coarser resolution as the LiDAR yields a thinner data set as compared to film or digital photography. Other products yield a bare earth terrain or reflective surface terrain model.Additional daily duties require contacting clients for managing deadlines and transfer of data. Occasional meetings for monitoring project workflow and financial performance help round out a complete workday.Keeping 17 employees busy, producing projects on time, and remaining within budgets while working with great employees and fellow department managers makes for a good project/department manager experience.

Calibration of LiDAR flight data using TerraSolid software. Creating, modifying and executing classification macros on point cloud data sets. Perform editing of classified data sets, perform qc of other department workers, and create deliverables for final delivery.

Feature collection for planimetric and topographic data sets from stereo imagery, primarily using softcopy workstations with Microstation. Also perform terrain editing of data sets using Socet Set.

Piloting either the Aero Commander 500 Shrike (Merlyn conversion) or the Piper Navajo (Panther conversion) around the United States and once to Canada for acquisition of film, digital imagery, and LiDAR. With imagery you could plan your work day around the sunny day's period of 30 degree sun angle. LiDAR removed that limitation and made it a day and night operation. Caffeine and Gatorade were good friends in the cockpit.

Breaking into the aerial mapping industry was interesting beginning at the Sidwell Company. The primary reason for being hired was to be another pilot for the company, but that wasn't the only thing expected. When not flying, pilots were expected to perform office duties to fill out the work week. For me this was my first chance to work in the 3D environment of stereo compilation. Being the rookie in the department the first plotter to learn was a Kern PG-2 with encoders for digitizing to a Bentley Microstation file. This lead to becoming proficient with a diapositive machine and the film processors. Next in the rotation was being able to use the Zeiss P-33 stereo plotter, although it did not have super-imposition. With a little more time and seniority the next step was stereo plotting on a SoftCopy workstation and being able to generate contours on screen as each vertex was added.

Kemlite is a manufacturer of fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP). Multiple production lines created the continually rolled sheets of product in varying thicknesses, color, and textures. Commonly recognized uses of the frp are in the rooftops of UPS delivery vans, recreational vehicle walls, and semi trailer walls. Some of the challenges were implementing manufacturing repairs, upgrades or new installations when the production lines were rarely halted. Overseeing contract work for structural repairs and installation of an outside catwalk for the unloading of tanker tanks containing resins and polymers were also required.

Starting a post-military career was with a manufacturing company which had a product line of bearings produced to meet the specifications of aircraft manufacturers. A separate product line was for non-aviation applications. Design work was done using Microstation J cadd software for quotation of raw materials, shop floor drawings, assembly, and qc prints. My responsibilities were to the aircraft product line, which included supervision of laboratory testing for tensile strength and life-cycle load wear tests. Investigation led to improvement of manufacturing bearings with less production steps involving teflon lined bearings meeting torsional specifications quicker. Following up on a customer issue discovered the root cause for premature bearing wear when operated in an environment with frequent exposure to water treated with bromine. Providing an easily followed cleaning procedure to the client resulted in extended mean time between failures in their unique application. Three draftsmen and one lab technician were under my direct supervision as well as receiving annual performance reviews.

Beginning the working career by joining the United States Navy via the Aviation Officer Candidate School (AOCS) was a life changing decision. Aviation had been a family interest since an early age. Joining this program was a possibility because of the Reagan era military build-up which required a college degree before being accepted. A fourteen week program under the daily supervision of a Marine Corps drill instructor began to instill the camaraderie and dedication necessary to succeed in a branch of the United States military. Performing well at basic flight training in Florida led to a move to Texas for advanced flight training. Upon receiving the coveted "Wings of Gold" and having higher scores in jet training led to selection of flying the seasoned, combat proven single seat A-7E aka Corsair II. Upon returning from my first fleet deployment on the USS Enterprise, our squadron sent the faithful Corsairs to Davis-Monthan. The following months were more training to learn flight operations of the new Hornet F/A-18C single seat strike fighters. Immediately upon completion of training was another deployment direct to the Persian Gulf for post-war monitoring from Desert Storm. During those deployments in addition to flying were various duties such as first lieutenant, avionics department supervisor, and NATOPS officer, along with being the squadron's drug and alcohol advisor. My final set of orders in the Navy was an "overseas" tour to the Canadian Flight Safety Office in Winnipeg, Canada. I was proud to be the representative for our Navy to the Canadian Air Office Headquarters as they also operated the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18A and B models Hornet. After major aircraft mishaps in their fleet I was called upon to explain the technical events to the upper echelon of the Canadian Air Force. I was one of the first people consulted to determine if their Hornet fleet should be temporarily grounded in the event the mishap could be the result of a systematic failure.