CHIEF INSPECTOR | APS
JOE MAYER BY JOE ESCOBAR
JOE MAYER IS THE CHIEF INSPECTOR FOR LAKE ZURICH, IL-BASED AIRCRAFT PROPELLER SERVICE (APS). AS MAYER GAVE US A TOUR OF APS, HIS EXPERTISE AND PASSION FOR EXCELLENCE WERE QUICKLY EVIDENT. HOWEVER, MAYER DIDN’T START HIS AVIATION CAREER WITH THE INTENTION OF RISING THROUGH THE RANKS AT A PROPELLER REPAIR STATION.
AN EARLY MENTOR Fred Weicker was an early mentor who introduced Mayer to aviation. “I met Fred when I was 10 years old,” Mayer tells D.O.M. magazine. “He was building a room addition on a house just down the street from my parents’ house in Arlington Heights, IL. There was a cement truck at the job site, and it ran out of water, so the cement was being poured dry. Fred went to grab a hose, but it was around six feet too short. He was swearing at the situation. Meanwhile, I ran over to our house, grabbed a hose and handed it to him. ‘Who told you to do that?’ he asked me. ‘Nobody,’ I told him. ‘I just saw you were upset and swearing, so I fi gured I’d help you out.’ ‘I’ll talk to you later,’ he told me. After they got done pouring the cement he came and sat with me and we chatted. He was the fi rst adult that talked to me as an adult. A month later, after his house addition was completed, we were sitting down having lunch. He asked me, ‘How would you like to go fl ying with me?’ I thought that would be really cool! So he took me to the Palwaukee (PWK) airport and told me to get in the left seat of his Cessna 150. The little bit I knew about airplanes, I knew that’s where the pilot sat. I told him I couldn’t sit there. He told me he was an instructor, so it was OK. So we got in the plane and took off . Once we got to around 200 feet off the ground, he had me grab the yoke. He took his hands off the yoke, crossed his arms, and told me, ‘Anywhere you want to go!’ That was my fi rst fl ight! “After that, all I wanted to do was fl y,” Mayer says.
“That’s all I ever thought about. After graduating from high school, Mayer attended Central Missouri State University (CMSU) with the intent of graduating with an ATP rating and an A&P certifi cate. He immersed himself in aviation since he lived so far from home. “I would hang out at the airport on the weekends,” he tells D.O.M. magazine. “I didn’t have anything better to
6
DOMmagazine.com | dec 2016 jan 2017
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
