Asking for it
As she had done in her education career, Johnson quickly launched her sales career, but then something unexpected happened amid her success: she saw a helicopter flying very close to a power transmission line. With her electrical engineering education, the intrigued saleswoman was fascinated and talked to the transmission- line guy, who explained how his department used rotorcraft to inspect and maintain power lines. Johnson was hooked and ready for action. “I want to transfer to your department,” she said. The man explained that people didn’t just come over without qualifications. Johnson was ready for his rebuff: “I then told him I’d done a Georgia Tech extension course on power-line design, earned my engineering add-on, and was ready to start.” He exclaimed, “Really?!” So, Johnson got her transfer to a more active, in-the-field job. She explains her direct approach, “My philosophy is: Don’t get stopped by fear. If you want to make a change, ask for it. If you get turned down, ask again or find out what you must do to get a yes.”
Best Practices
Johnson worked on Southern Company’s lines for three years, learning from field experience the efficiency of helicopters in power-line work. She explained that it can take a lineman 45 minutes to climb into position to do his job and then another 45 minutes to climb down (the direction in which most injuries happen). The helicopter eliminates all that risky climbing and exertion. Johnson says, “It’s much faster — and safer — to use helicopters, so it was a no-brainer for me to gravitate to them.”
She eventually left Southern Company to work for utility rotorcraft operator Haverfield Aviation. There, Johnson tried to show leaders through her own statistical analysis (She says, “People lie; numbers don’t.”) how they could reduce accidents. When she felt Haverfield wasn’t listening, she left in 2015. Perhaps they should have paid attention. CEO Johnson says that she and her COO partner Mike Woolsey at DaVinciSKY lead one of the few — if not the only — MD 500 groups that have no accidents or incidents.
Hiring Helps
After leaving Haverfield, Johnson built her own independent consulting business for utilities. Power Secure, a Southern Company subsidiary, invited her to Puerto Rico to consult on its engineering efforts that utilized aerial support as it repaired and rebuilt the island’s severely storm-damaged power grid. Johnson was given authority to manage her part of Power Secure’s project and authority to manage its employees. This experience opened her mind. “For some reason, I’d developed a mental block against hiring employees, fearing they would drag me down; I operated as a one-woman consultant, with just me and my assistant. But I found in Puerto Rico that having teams directly reporting to me freed me up and allowed me to serve others more,” Johnson says. “That realization inspired me to hire employees and start DaVinciSKY.”
So far, Johnson has hired 57 employees for her utility helicopter operation, with a third of those hires being women. She looks for team players. “Generally, women want to be part of a team. When it comes to women, I like to hire sports enthusiasts who have played a team sport because they know what it’s like to be on a team,” she says. Her criteria for men differs somewhat. “With men, I want to hire men
who value good communication. Many men are quiet by nature, and in our business, I need them to talk and communicate to let me and others know the status of things and what’s happening. It’s about having situational awareness and building a sense of community,” she says.
When it comes to managing all these employees, Johnson draws on her deep family roots. “My leadership style comes from my parents. I knew they loved me, but they weren’t afraid to correct me if I did wrong. I had a healthy fear, or respect, for them, and that’s what I want our employees to have for me. I try to lead them with a servant’s heart.” (That comes from her devout Christian faith; she rises most mornings at 4:30 for personal devotion.)
Johnson reminisces about her late entrepreneurial father, with understandable love almost choking back her words, “My dad passed away, and there are so many days when I have a problem, I ask myself, ‘What would Dad do?’ He taught me by example that it’s better to try and fail than never try. He wasn’t afraid to take a risk and try something new.”
Like father, like daughter.
14
Mar/Apr 2025
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