PROFILE
PILOT/MECHANIC Bertele wanted to get a pilot job. He visited Talon Air and was waiting to talk to them about a possible job while the FAA was at the facility performing a conformity inspection. Bertele waited as the FAA was asking questions, and nobody knew how to answer them. “I started answering questions and 15 minutes later I’m writing a response letter, taking notes and making bullet points,” Bertele says. “When the FAA left Talon Air said they wanted to hire me as the director of maintenance. I told them I wanted to be a pilot. So they hired me as a pilot and DOM. By the time I left Talon Air, I was the director of maintenance for the 135 and was current in three diff erent types — the King Air 200, Beechjet and Hawker.” Bertele then got a job at Jet Equity as a pilot and later DOM. When the job closed down, he was laid off . Within a week, Bertele landed a job at Safe Flight, where he has been ever since. “Safe fl ight is a very good fi t for me,” Bertele says. “I am able to use my engineering background in motion control. They have products in the transport and rotorcraft markets, where I have all my ratings. It allows me to challenge and stretch my collective muscles of helicopter pilot, mechanic, inspector and engineer. I’ve been here for 10 years, which is a pretty good stretch in aviation.” We asked Bertele if he thinks being a pilot and a mechanic has helped him in his career. “Absolutely,” he says. “When I tell people I was a DOM and fl ying three turbine types, I need to tell them three times before it sinks in. But here’s the secret — half of my maintenance experience dovetails right in to half of my operational experience in the aircraft. I could help the pilots based on my maintenance knowledge and vice versa. “I think one of the biggest challenges with being a pilot/ mechanic is sometimes I tend to
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troubleshoot a problem in fl ight further than I should, and that could compromise safety,” he shares. “Like the L-1011 that crashed in the Florida Everglades because the pilots were focused trying to fi x a light bulb. I sometimes try to troubleshoot things instead of saying, ‘OK, it’s broken, we’ll fi x it on the ground,’ and focus on fl ying the helicopter.” Bertele says that empowering
employees to make their own decisions has been an important leadership trait he has developed. “I try to take a step back whenever I can and let them make their own decisions,” he says. “I may want to go left, but he wants to go right. I really think we should go left, but he wants to go right and I let him. I believe allowing people to make decisions, even if they make mistakes, earns a tremendous amount of respect. If no one’s going to get hurt or it doesn’t cost us extra money, I let him or her do it. If it doesn’t work out, nothing bad happens other than we may need to stay a little late. But it earns that person’s respect.” We asked Bertele what his advice
would be for a young mechanic for a successful career in aviation. You might be able to guess his answer. “I would probably say get your pilot’s license,” he says. “I believe the best mechanics are pilots and the best pilots are mechanics!”
BLACKHORSE 4 HEROES Although Bertele’s job keeps him busy, he fi nds time to devote to Blackhorse 4 Heroes, a non-profi t organization he founded to help military veterans deal with severe PTSD and anxiety. They use horses as part of the therapy, Bertele explains: “In the military, our training teaches us to disconnect our emotions so we can jump off that bridge and accomplish our mission. I would fl y along getting missile- locked by the Soviets, while listening to
Van Halen with a big smile on my face. How disconnected from your own fear can you be?
The problem is after trauma, you over react to normal stimuli, called hyper vigilance. These manifest themselves into mini-panic attacks that build to the point of becoming debilitating. The insidious part is that veterans cannot even feel the onset. These veterans we serve are PRRP or residential, and are hospitalized, inpatient for 90 days as part of their treatment. The West Haven VA has only six beds. The reason we work with horses is because horses have evolved over millions of years to avoid getting eaten. Their ability to sense anxiety is very astute and keen. I’ve had them react to someone’s anxiety from across the arena. If you think about it, if the horses senses anxiety, it is going to raise its head and look for a lion. The vets learn to observe that behavior and do what they need to do to reduce their anxiety and get the horse to accept them. If the Veterans apply the techniques learned from the VA to control anxiety, the horse starts to relax. If you get to the point where the horse feels like you will protect him, he will go right to sleep. Once the horse is relaxed, we put a harness on the horse, hook it up to a carriage and ride around. Our results are so eff ective, the VA considers attendance mandatory for their severe PTS patients. Unfortunately they do not pay us, and it’s hard to say no when you’re saving lives.” Bertele and his wife, Melissa, provide most of the funding for Blackhorse 4 Heroes themselves. To date, they have helped around 100 vets. To learn more, or to make a donation, visit
www.BlackHorse4Heroes.com.
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