EXECUTIVE WATCH President of Dart Aerospace Ryan Williamson By Rick Weatherford
The Summer Olympic Games were coming to Montreal in 1976. Jim Bradley and his family created a company to sell souvenirs to the throngs of visitors from around the globe coming to Canada. As they were gearing up in 1975, another opportunity came to Bradley in an industry far from souvenirs — a small helicopter job for the installation of an HF whip antenna on a Sikorsky helicopter. Bradley seized on that opportunity, and thus 50 years ago, Dart Aerospace was born. The business now sells rotorcraft products and services to customers in almost every nation on Earth. “It’s funny how companies start and how they evolve over time,” says Dart’s current president, Ryan Williamson. He speaks from experience, for he came to aerospace from an industry as unrelated to helicopters as Olympic souvenirs — the furniture manufacturing business.
Williamson was working in operations for a small furniture manufacturing company in his native Eugene, Oregon, and was looking for opportunities in aerospace. An executive at Dart heard from a company that had interviewed Williamson that a promising young man was looking. “I literally never applied to work at Dart, but they called me on that recommendation,” Williamson says. “I’m glad I took that call.” Indeed he is, for answering that bell led to an ongoing 20- year Dart career that saw Williamson ascend from operations management to sales to president in an industry he’s come to love. He says, “I go to work every day in an exciting, fast- moving and challenging sector.”
Williamson did not have a conventional path to the president’s role, such as a prestigious university degree. Most of his preparation was a real-world education by working, mostly in operations. “Everything I learned, I learned by doing,” he says. He kept his nose to the grindstone but also looked to additional opportunities. “I could say something like I just work hard, which I do, but really I capitalized on opportunities as they presented themselves,” he says. “For example, when I was asked if I would be willing to move from Eugene to Ontario, Canada, to be vice president and general manager of Dart’s Canadian operations, it would have been easy to say no. Our son Derrick was 16 at the time and our family was happy and comfortable (including wife Angela) but I took the opportunity, with the agreement of my family, to pick up and move 3,000 miles.” That opportunity led to a global operations role that led to a sales and marketing role that all led to the president’s job. Williamson reflects on his career path, “Apple cofounder Steve Jobs once said it’s easy to connect the dots looking backwards, but hard to connect them looking forward. Sometimes, you just have to take the leap and trust that they will align in your future.”
12
Jan/Feb 2025
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