PROFILE
Garrett Ebersole (R) works with a TES technician on an engine borescope inspection. Carter Shelton on L/H side of photo.
person for the job, but that didn’t stop me from double-guessing the opportunity.” Hayes didn’t make the decision
lightly. He had no ego to try to prove himself to anyone else. He had the personal insight to ask himself if he was ready to take on this responsibility. “There were so many unknowns that I wasn’t sure about. But the mentors I had always looked up to and trusted told me I could do it and that they would be there to back me up. I decided to accept the job and jump right in. I was going to sink or swim — and I’ve always been a swimmer.”
THE TRANSITION When Hayes accepted the job as chief of maintenance at Harley- Davidson, his biggest challenge was bringing new mechanics on board. “It was just me,” he says. “It was kind of a fi refi ghter position — I was constantly putting out fi res. The airplanes were still fl ying. Aircraft maintenance still had to be done. The fuel farm still had to be managed
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along with all of the other duties. Before I accepted the job, I told the company I would need to hire two mechanics and they agreed. Now I was trying to hire two mechanics while keeping everything else running.
“I had never hired anyone,”
continues Hayes. “I didn’t know how to go about the whole process. I eventually decided to take a diff erent stance when I began the hiring process. Since the aircraft was still fairly new, I knew it was going to be nearly impossible to fi nd anyone with years of experience on the 300. But I thought if the company had the trust to promote a 28-year-old guy to chief of maintenance, I should be able to trust a young person to come into the position as a mechanic. Personality was important. I wanted people I could trust as well as have fun doing what we do best. I wanted to work with a team of professionals.” As Hayes started to look over
the resumes he was getting, it was diffi cult to try to fi gure out who would be a good fi t for the team. He decided to look beyond experience
and qualifi cations to get to know the potential candidates. He would take them out to lunch or dinner to try to get to know them personally. Some looked good on paper but were not a good fi t.
His patience paid off , and Hayes
eventually hired two employees who are still working with him. One is Garrett Ebersole, a Harley-Davidson enthusiast who Hayes met at a Honeywell school for the HTF7000 engine on the Challenger 300. Ebersole was the lead technician for the APU shop and also worked on the 300 engines for Turbine Engine Specialists out of Fort Worth, TX. He had done some work for Harley- Davidson in the past. The other hire was Carter Shelton. Shelton worked at the Cessna Citation Service Center next to Harley-Davidson as a project manager. Hayes had heard good things from diff erent people on the fi eld. Hayes invited Shelton to meet for an interview and hired him. As Hayes was going through
the process of hiring the two new employees, there was an initial course
PHOTO COURTESY OF HARLEY-DAVIDSON FLIGHT OPERATIONS.
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