Falling Into a Career Path

By Francis Turoski

Most people would not have considered me a shoo-in for becoming a pilot six months ago. I only had seen Pilotsmith as a possible avenue for a career path. I wanted to do something meaningful and develop a skill that I could use for the rest of my life. I don’t quite understand how I fell into this career path, but I am glad that I’m in it now.

Walking into a student consultation without a clue about aviation, I wanted to hear about the aviation world. Two and a half hours later, I left the consultation with four pages of notes and a job offer from Pilotsmith in Green Bay. I didn’t realize how different the aviation world would be! Pilotsmith gave me the ins and outs of starting an aviation career and offered to invest in me to develop a professional pilot. I spent two and a half hours talking with the flight school manager, and in that meeting, I realized how much they valued students as individuals and the need for pilots in the state of Wisconsin.

Being in a team of professionals, as an employee and a student pilot is an incredible opportunity to learn the aviation industry. I am on the ground floor of a flight school that is undergoing some major growth. We moved into a new facility the day I began on the Pilotsmith team and took on a whole new type of work. I was immediately thrown into the mix with our end of year audit on student documentation. Pilotsmith encouraged me to listen in on conversations about company growth, project management, and collaborative leadership among our team members.

Being a big part of the transitional period for this company has taught me how important it is to be upfront and honest with our students, our flight instructors, and our maintenance department. There is so much that happens in the course of a day at a flight school that does their own maintenance. We saw everything from maintaining a plane to sending our instructors and students out for a flight. Having the bird’s eye view as an administrative employee and a boots on the ground view of the flight school as an employee, I feel like I know so much more about the flight school than I ever would have known just as a student pilot.

By the end of the second month, I was taking on new exciting tasks like onboarding new students and even interviewing CFIs with our hiring manager. The management at Pilotsmith allowed us to learn how to talk about our program to potential students, renters, and investors.

I’m glad to be part of this Cirrus training center and professional flight school. I‘m not sure where it will take me, but I know Pilotsmith will build me into a successful professional in any realm of aviation.