PROFILE
THE FIRST JOB After graduating from Spartan, Johnson visited different air- craft maintenance facilities around the Dallas area handing out resumes trying to land a job. In April of 2005, Johnson went to work part time as a contractor for TXI aviation at Dallas Love Field. TXI was a Part 145 repair station that worked on business jets. “I still remember talking to the DOM at TXI,” Johnson says. “He told me, ‘Well, you don’t have experience, so we can’t hire you full-time. But I know you can’t get experience until someone hires you.’ So he let me work as a contractor part-time to get some experience.” Johnson was able to get experience working on various
business jets including Cessna Citation 500s and 550s and Falcon 10s and 50s. Nine months later, he was hired full-time by TXI.
VITESSE AVIATION SERVICES After a few years working at TXI, the company was sold to Vitesse Aviation Services. Johnson stayed on with the new company as a mechanic on the floor. At that point, the company expanded its maintenance capabilities to include Hawkers, Beechjets and Citation 650s. It also expanded into Falcon 20s and 200s. After a while, Johnson was promoted
to a weekend shift lead. “There were three of us,” he tells D.O.M. magazine. “I was accepting work and making the work orders. I was running the crew while also being out on the floor working along side them. We did a lot of troubleshooting and quick-turn work. It was less inspection work and more AOG-type work.” We asked Johnson if there were any challenges transitioning from a mechanic to a shift lead. “Honestly, the transition went pretty smooth,” he says. “When I started working as a lead, everyone who worked there was extremely helpful. They didn’t leave me out to dry. If I needed anything, all I had to do was ask. I was working with people who had a lot of experience, and they shared their knowledge with me.” Johnson later was promoted to floor inspector, inspecting
and reviewing all the paperwork before releasing the aircraft. Over time, there was a slow down of work at Vitesse, and the company did away with the weekend shift. Everyone went back to working Monday through Friday. During that slow down, Johnson was moved into the inspection department in the machine shop. He was inspecting 737 flap carriage overhauls as part of the QA department.
BUSINESS JET ACCESS In October 2010, Vitesse was sold to Business Jet Access. Johnson went back to working as a floor technician. Busi- ness Jet Access was a charter operator with a new repair sta- tion certificate. The company was trying to grow its outside customer maintenance. “We managed and chartered 12 cus- tomer aircraft,” Johnson says. “And we were starting to bring in outside customers. We had Citation 650s, Hawker 850s, Challenger 300s, a King Air 350, a BAC 1-11 and a Global Express that we were maintaining, and I was fortunate to get experience on all of them.” After about a year and a half, Johnson was promoted to lead technician. Then a year later, in March 2013, Johnson was laid off. He then went to work at West Star Aviation as a lead technician at Dallas Love Field. As a lead technician at West Star, Johnson had an assigned crew. As aircraft came in, he would manage the crew’s work assignments and update customers as the process went along. In July 2013, the company was sold to Four Points Aero Services.
DOM When West Star was sold to Four Points Aero Services, the DOM didn’t transition with new company. The job position was posted and employees were encouraged to put in for the job. Johnson submitted his resume and was selected as the new DOM for Four Points Aero Services. John Hayes, who had been the DOM at Business Jet Access, was then the general manager at Four Point Aero Services, and hired Johnson as the new DOM at the company. “John was a huge mentor,” Johnson says. “When he moved me into this position, it originally started as pro- duction control supervisor. It was a step to get me into the DOM role. I was able to get my head wrapped around the job
while making the transition.” Johnson says he wasn’t left to himself when he became the DOM at Four Points. “I had a lot of people to lean on,” he tells D.O.M. magazine. “I had worked with most of the employees out on the hangar floor in the past. That made for an easier transition than coming into a new company and telling the mechanics ‘I’m the new guy in charge.’ Our owner Tom Montgomery has also been a huge help. We have a solid management team. No matter what department it is or what is going on, we all work together as a team.” We asked Johnson what the biggest challenge was when he transitioned to being a DOM. “I would say the numbers side
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