Back Shop: Change Agent

AM: How did you start Global Jet Services?

McHenry: Back in 1992, I was getting frustrated with working for an aircraft manufacturer. They were a typical large company with the politics and bureaucracy that simply did not fit my abilities and potential. One day, with my wife’s support, we decided to start our own company. We wanted to create a company that would provide exceptional products, customer service and lead the way in maintenance training. There has always been an emphasis on pilot training, with maintenance training taking a back seat. We wanted to change that and be the leader in aviation maintenance training. We also wanted to provide our employees with an excellent working environment with financial rewards and our employees are motivated and have challenging responsibilities.

How did the affiliation with FlightSafety International come about?

Even though both FSI and GJS offer maintenance training in the business aviation industry, we realized that we also offer different products and services. Our Shared Resources is a perfect program, offered by both FSI and GJS, which gives our customers many more choices. Through our partnership, our services are quite complete and yet we continue to add more innovative training courses.

What services do you offer?

We offer complete aircraft maintenance courses including initial, refresher, aircraft differences, electrical interface, line maintenance and many customized courses. Customers are continually asking us for customized courses in order to meet their specific maintenance training needs. All of our avionics courses are unique in the industry and we are proud to be offering them. We offer a generic course that addresses all the avionics systems regardless of the different manufacturers. We also offer avionics for line, advanced avionics, FAR 91.411/91.413/RVSM, aircraft wiring, aircraft avionics interface, and other customized courses. The hands-on in our RVSM and aircraft wiring courses, make them invaluable to the technician.

How do you differ from other companies that offer similar services?

We concentrate on practical teaching techniques. Our courses can be shorter in length than other training courses because we only teach the practical knowledge needed. Our instructors teach interactively, which means that our instructors will ask students questions and create discussions and troubleshooting situations. Getting students involved with the learning process is far more effective than simply listening to an instructor lecturing. We take a lot of time to teach our instructors how to teach effectively. We also send our instructors to the customer’s locations where they are able to provide invaluable hands-on training and also reduce the overall costs for the customer. Because we are at the customer’s location, we can use the real aircraft or any other training aids that the students may want us to use.

Tell us about your professional development courses.

Our professional development courses are customized for aviation. We start with Aviation Interpersonal Maintenance Management (AIMM). AIMM is the only course that we know of that concentrates on aviation leadership and management. All college courses teach theory, where AIMM is all hands-on. Students can take all the techniques discussed in the course and apply them to their everyday use effectively. Our human factors, OSHA/EPA, repair station training, maintenance resource management, and aviation customer service courses are also very much hands-on while being customized for aviation. All the courses are FAA, Transport Canada and EASA compliant.

What do you consider Global Jet Service’s most unique ability?

Our niche is the mobility factor. This means we always send our instructors to the customer’s location. As I explained earlier, we provide invaluable hands-on experience that the students simply cannot receive in the classroom. From the hosting company point of view, students are available in case of an AOG situation. There have been cases in the past where an AOG situation was used as a training experience that the students learned from at the same time they got the aircraft flying with the help from our instructor. Going on-site allows the students to learn effectively within the comfort of staying home and for those students who have too many interruptions at work, we can conduct a course away from their work facility or they can attend other courses held throughout the country.