If you had to use one word to describe Hayden Malone’s latest career change, it would have to be contradictory.

While the trend in our industry is to leave it for a high-paying job outside aviation, he left a lucrative job as a lead technician at a city power generating plant to become the full-time maintenance technician at the family’s fledgling flight school. But, we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves . . .

Malone began his aviation maintenance career with the U.S. Air Force in the late 1960s. But when he left the service, even an honors graduate from the Air Force’s tech school found the employment pickings pretty slim.

Right about then, Malone heard of a need for experienced mechanical technicians at a small project outside Orlando, Florida called Walt Disney World. For the next 11 years, Malone worked on all facets of show and ride installation at both the Disney World and EPCOT theme parks.

But aviation kept calling (and there is a limit to how many times a guy can sit through that annoying, yet catchy tune, "It’s a Small World"). So Malone went to Charleston, South Carolina and "re-enlisted" with the Air Force as a flight engineer on C-141 Starlifters.

After nearly 10 years of "flying the world," Malone retired from the Air Force for a second time and moved his growing family to Jacksonville, Florida, where he went to work at one of the city’s large power-generating plants.

While this career change got him out of professional aviation maintenance, it didn’t get him out of aviation. "I’ve kept my hand in private aviation all along," Malone said. "After moving here to Jacksonville, I totally rebuilt a Cessna 150. My son and I both did our private training in that airplane. And now it’s paying its way out on the flight line of our flight school."

The flight school has brought him back into aviation maintenance for the third time. In early 2000, Malone did something that would make the average man cringe; he left his comfortable, six-figure job at the power plant to get into the "who knows what will happen tomorrow" world of flight training.

"It was something my son Scott and daughter-in-law Mindy wanted to do," he explained. "They both had been working at the flight school under its first owner, then when the guy decided to close it, they decided to take it over."

So when Sterling Flight Training by Malone Air opened its doors, its mission statement was to provide students with the best flight training experience in northeastern Florida. "And great flight training begins with reliable, well-maintained aircraft," Malone added. "I knew from the beginning that we couldn’t afford to pay someone else to provide the high level of maintenance I wanted, so I quit my job and came to work here full time. It was quite a commitment to a lifestyle change, but thankfully my wife, Irene, is 100 percent behind it. She puts in as many hours here as I do."

One of the business decisions the Malones have made is to own the majority of the school’s airplanes. "That way I make all the decisions about maintenance expenditures," he said. "Safety will never be compromised for the sake of saving money."

In-house engine overhauls are one of the areas where Malone is particularly proud of his commitment to quality and safety. "I do all my own overhauls," he said. "That way I can see what’s really happening inside and make the right decisions about what is fixed or replaced. When they’re done, my engines are spotless inside and out. I can’t say the same for an engine another shop does."

Today, thanks to a lot of hard work from a family that really cares about aviation, Sterling Flight Training is doing quite well. The school has more than 100 students on the roster and 11 airplanes on the flight line. Malone now has two full-time technicians and a part-time helper working for him in the maintenance shop. But that doesn’t mean he has any spare time.

Malone Air, the charter arm of the business, is in the final stages of applying for its Part 135 certificate. In anticipation of bringing a turboprop on line, Malone recently attended Pratt & Whitney Canada’s week-long PT-6 heavy maintenance school. "It was a great school," he said. "We got a chance to learn how to do all the work you’d need to do on a PT-6 in the field."

If that’s not enough, in a separate room in the back of Sterling’s hangar, there’s a very special Cessna 310. "At one time, the ‘Noon Balloon’ belonged to the famous author Ernest K. Gann and he wrote a series of stories based on his adventures with the airplane," Malone said. "Right now, my goal is to rebuild it into the best 310 in the world."

When a man’s in his third career in aviation, there’s little doubt he loves what he’s doing and he’ll do what he sets out to do.