PROFILE
think twice about it,” Hayes says. “I said yes.” Hayes detailed the aircraft and cleaned the hangar and customers’ cars. He learned how everything worked, from dispatch to maintenance, and saw how all of the departments all worked together for one thing — the passengers. There was an interior shop,
Cameron Aircraft Interiors, on the field, and Cameron employees often came in to T-Bird Aviation to perform work on their aircraft. Hayes got to know the Cameron employees well. One day, after Hayes had been working at T-Bird for about eight months, one of Cameron’s employees told him that there was a job opening at McDonald’s corporate flight department as an airplane cleaner. Hayes didn’t want to make a lateral move and transfer to another non-maintenance job – he was ready to work as a mechanic. Even so, he decided to visit McDonald’s after work one day and see what the job was about. Hayes met Terry Lutrick, DOM for McDonalds. The flight department operated three Global Expresses and a GIV at the time. Lutrick introduced Hayes to Mike Delves, the maintenance supervisor, and they all sat down and started to talk. Hayes shared that he was a graduate of Spartan, had his A&P certificate and was looking for a maintenance job. Delves and Lutrick told Hayes that even though the job opening they had was for an aircraft cleaner, they were always on the lookout for technicians for their team. Although there weren’t any technician jobs available at the time, they thought Hayes would be a good fit to do some cleaning and also help out with maintenance as needed. They said they would call him after thinking about it. The next day, Delves called Hayes with a job offer. Hayes accepted the offer and gave his two-week
8 |
DOMmagazine.com | may 2016
notice to T-Bird Aviation. “I had a hard time going back to T-Bird and telling them I was going to leave,” Hayes tells D.O.M. magazine. “Jim brought me into the business and I appreciated that. I told him that deep down I felt I needed to take the new job. Jim didn’t want to lose me, but he understood. He told me they were going to pay me for the two weeks but said I could go start work at McDonald’s as soon as I wanted to. I was able to start working at McDonald’s the very next day.” That was in September 2004. Hayes worked on the McDonald’s Global Express jets and their GIV. The flight department was going to replace the GIV with a new Challenger 300 soon. “At the time, nobody knew anything about them,” says Hayes. “It was a brand new airframe.” Before McDonald’s took delivery of its Challenger 300, Delves and Lutrick decided to send Hayes and another senior technician to type school for the 300. Hayes and the other technician traveled to the Bombardier Training Facility in Dallas to sit in on the four- week Bombardier initial course. “Bombardier was still developing the maintenance training program for the 300,” says Hayes. “We were some of the first to attend the training course. The books were freshly printed. It was four weeks of intense learning and studying. I was very fortunate. Here I was less than two years after graduating from high school, and I was training on the newest airframe to hit the market.” Hayes went on to get his initial on the Global Express as well. McDonald’s was busy with their aircraft at the time. Delves and the team kept pushing Hayes and let him take on more responsibility on the 300. “To this day, the 300 has been ‘my baby.’ It has been my specialty,” says Hayes. “I am thankful of the
opportunity I had at McDonald’s. Everyone was extremely helpful and mentored me as I learned the ropes. They kept on pushing me to learn more and I enjoyed it. I soaked up everything like a sponge.”
JOB TRANSITION After Hayes was at McDonald’s for around 2 1/2 years, the flight department went through a downsizing. It got rid of two of its aircraft. Because of the uncertainty of his future at McDonald’s due to the downsizing, Hayes thought he needed to look into other job opportunities. He didn’t want to leave McDonald’s, but understood the situation. He looked into an opportunity at Waukegan, IL- based Abbott Laboratories. Some of Abbott’s technicians had visited McDonald’s because they were going to be taking delivery of two 300’s and wanted to take a walk around one of McDonald’s aircraft. During the visit, they told Hayes that they were going to be hiring a technician. With the support of Delves and Lutrick, he sent them back with his resume. Abbott’s DOM Bob Francisco soon called Hayes and asked him to come in for an interview. Abbott was looking for a technician for the 300’s they would soon be getting, and Hayes was one of the few mechanics who had experience on the airframe since there were only around 40 flying at the time. Hayes visited Abbott and
interviewed with Francisco. Hayes soon received a phone call from Abbott’s HR department to offer him the job, and he accepted. He started working at Abbott in July 2006.
ABBOTT LABORATORIES At the time, Abbott operated a Hawker 800XP, King Air 350, two Challenger 300s and two Gulfstream 450s. “It was a ‘mechanics shop,’”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68