Mentoring Those weaker areas were
strengthened by mentorship, including the hands-on involvement of now-retired ASU founder Mike Atwood. “There wasn’t a day that I didn’t have some interaction with him. A lot of owners and executives are hardly seen; they’re in some office away. That wasn’t Mike; he was right beside you,” McDermott says. Such mentorship smoothed McDermott’s rougher edges. “A lot of us mechanics are weaker on some of the business-side areas like human resource management. We’re generally a little harder than we need to be in managing personnel. Good mentorship and training helps temper those tendencies,” McDermott also shored up another shortcoming. He says, “All of us who have been directors of maintenance (DOM) don’t want to pay attention to the money side of the business. We’re focused on the job at hand and solving problems in the shop, but if you don’t pay attention to the money side of the house, then you won’t have any job in a few years. I learned that you have to be accountable and answer for the hours and costs of maintenance and parts.” Toward this end, ASU changed its business philosophy a few years ago to bring younger colleagues (ASU calls employees “colleagues”) into the budgeting process. “We have repair station managers managing budgets and revenue flow. Getting to see the business side of the house helps them to better understand what needs to happen. People throughout the company get to be part of these management decisions, and they’re not just worker bees working day to day to day. They’re exposed to the business side and get to understand it. Just as I was mentored, we mentor them through this process. It goes from the top all the way to the bottom. As a product of that process, I think it’s the reason ASU’s still here banging around in this industry after 25 years when a lot of others haven’t made it.”
Longevity
That multi-decade stability is another key to both McDermott’s and ASU’s success. After working in Germany for six years as a young A&P licensed mechanic for both the Army (B Company, 70th Transportation Battalion at Coleman Army Airfield in Mannheim, Germany) and U.S. Department of Defense contractor DynCorp (also in Mannheim), McDermott returned to his native Idaho in 1996. (He says he “took a big pay cut” to return.) After working for a few Boise-based aviation companies as a wrench-turner and maintenance manager, McDermott started his ASU career in March 2002 and has advanced ever since. He reached the executive ranks as vice president of engineering in 2016, and on June 1 of this year his promotion to vice president of aviation operations was announced. McDermott’s lengthy tenure is not unusual for ASU. “Most of our staff are long-term colleagues. We don’t hire people for just a year, but usually hire them for as long as they want to work with us,” he says.
Marriage
Other than his career at ASU, another multi-decade milestone is his marriage to his high school classmate Stacey, who is COO of the Idaho Hospital Association. He says, “I’m hoping I’ve got another 25 years, or more, of marriage with Stacey.” With their children grown and out of the house, they enjoy traveling together. McDermott especially enjoys outdoor sports such as whitewater rafting and fishing.
Attitude
As most executives we’ve profiled say, McDermott agrees if you want to get hired, it’s best to bring your A game — “A” as in “awesome attitude.” He says, “We hire a lot based on a person’s personality because employees can go on the road with each other for weeks at a time. We are a family. That’s not just a hokey term. For example, I’ve got two guys who spent the last three weeks in Turkey. They left Turkey and they’re now spending another three weeks in Austria doing installs. Getting along with your colleagues is not just a nice thing; it’s essential to what we do. When new hires did not work out, it’s usually because they didn’t mesh well with the team. Our staff will get them up to speed technically, but to do that we have to hire good, willing folks. Give me a basically competent person with a good attitude that’s willing to learn over an extremely competent jerk.” While international travel and foreign work for weeks and months at a time seems tough, McDermott does not overlook dedicated colleagues. “I’ll try to make sure they’re rewarded either monetarily or with better quality of life stuff, such as a better work-life balance,” he says. “If guys and gals are honest and they’ve got a great work ethic, they’re golden.”
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