HELICOPTER MECHANIC OF THE YEAR Some of the People Attending the Award Presentation The timeline for the award was Oct. 1 through Dec.
31, 2013. The nominations were coming in and our list of corporate sponsors was growing. Now the Advisory Board had the tough job in that they graded the nominees. I deliberately stayed out of the grading process. It was close, but in the end the winner was Derek Weeden of Dyncorp International in McClellan, CA. Weeden has 30 years experience working on helicopters. After serving six years in the U.S. Army, mostly in the Air Cavalry, Weeden spent about a year working for a crop
duster in central California. Then in his own words, he was “fortunate enough to get a job working as a contractor on Air Force HH-1Hs at Hill AFB in Ogden, UT.” After three years there, he heard through the grapevine that a facility was being created to maintain the California Department of Forestry’s fleet of UH-IF helicopters, as well as building their replacements. That was a fleet of modified UH-1Hs, later called Super Hueys. He was happy to be accepted at the beginning of that important project, and has remained there for the last 23 years. After accepting the award, Weeden said the following: “A big thank you to Helicopter Maintenance magazine and the sponsors listed on the awards banner for this award, and to the magazine’s editorial Advisory Board for selecting me as the 2013 winner. A very special thank you to my boss, Jeff Cavarra, for surprising me by nominating me for the award, because until Fred Polak, editor of Helicopter Maintenance magazine called me, I had no idea that I had even been nominated, let alone chosen as the winner! “I hope this award is given annually for a long time, so all the deserving mechanics who are out there quietly working away can have the chance to be recognized. Last but not least, thanks to the dedicated crew I work with everyday, which almost always make me look good. And of course to my wife Becky, who has been married to a helicopter mechanic for 30 years, and that has not always been easy.”
Jim Freeman on the Right and Fred Polak Holding the Check 26
HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com April | May 2014
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