From the Trenches

Former Aircraft Technical Publishers northeast regional sales manager Dale Forton decided to go into business for himself and purchased parts distributor Aeroworks. Before buying Aeroworks, Forton was director of product support for Northern Air in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Aeroworks is now based in Ionia, Michigan. Forton also was elected as Great Lakes regional manager for the Professional Aviation Maintenance Association.

The Philadelphia FAA Flight Standards District Office's Aircraft Maintenance Technician of the Year 2003 is Michael Harkins, director of maintenance for Aero Taxi, New Castle, Delaware and president of the First State PAMA Chapter.

Bruce Meade was promoted to service manager at Atlantic Aero, Greensboro, North Carolina. Meade was Learjet program director at Atlantic Aero, having joined the company after working as a Learjet field representative based in Dallas, Texas.

As part of its creation of a new Aerospace Division, 3M has promoted Dan Machacek to sales and marketing director and Larry Ptasienski to MRO market segment manager. New positions in the Aerospace Division include Rich Bushman, OEM market segment manager; Jeff Lonergan, military market segment manager; Cristina Rosenfeld-Bless, marketing manager in International Planning and Development; and Karen Cleveland, marketing communications administrator.

Crane Aerospace & Electronics appointed Michael L. Brady vice president and chief financial officer for the company's Aerospace Group. Brady was vice president and general manager of Crane's Hydro-Aire division. The company also announced that Rick Jones is now senior vice president of operations for the Aerospace Group.