PROFILE
Marlin Priest FOUNDER/CEO | PIONEER AVIATION MANAGEMENT
MARLIN PRIEST IS THE FOUNDER AND CEO OF PIONEER AVIATION MANAGEMENT — A BUSINESS AVIATION TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMPANY. HE HAS HAD A SUCCESSFUL CAREER IN BUSINESS AVIATION AND IS NOW GIVING BACK TO THE INDUSTRY THROUGH HIS VOLUNTEER WORK AND THROUGH PIONEER AVIATION MANAGEMENT. THIS IS HIS STORY.
LEARNING TO FLY When Priest was in high school, he developed a desire and a passion to fl y. He had a brother-in-law at the time who was just out of the Air Force and working as an A&P mechanic at the local airport. Priest started working for him as a mechanic’s assistant in order to make money to fl y — basically trading work hours for fl ying hours. Priest grew up around an auto
body repair shop, and while working in the shop as a mechanic assistant, he realized he had a passion for working on aircraft. When he graduated from high school, he enrolled in a Part 147 school in Ozark, AL. He continued to
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DOMmagazine.com | oct 2019
fl y while in school, albeit at a slower pace because of the expenses of being a student. He worked in the school’s print shop and at the school’s repair station, gaining valuable hands-on experience and earning money to fl y and take care of personal needs. We asked Priest if he found the extra experience of working in the repair station to be benefi cial. “Yes,” he says. “It taught me some of the basic mechanic skills. I also learned teamwork. My fundamental work ethics and skills were being developed while I was working in school.” After graduating from A&P school in 1976, he got his fi rst job as an A&P at Bill Woods Beechcraft in
Birmingham, AL. Priest shares it was an unusual experience. “I interviewed, and they sent me over for a physical,” he shares. “When I came back from the physical, they immediately off ered me a job, and I accepted it. I literally went to work that afternoon. The service manager asked me when I could start, and I asked, ‘When do you need me?’ He said, ‘Now!’ I was wearing a suit and wing-tip shoes. He let me borrow a set of his uniforms and work out of his toolbox that day.”
BILL WOODS BEECHCRAFT Priest says that fi rst job at Bill Woods Beechcraft was fast-paced. “It required me to adapt quickly,”
PHOTO: CALLIE PRIEST
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