Aviation

FAA Certified Flight Instructor
Instrument Instructor
Multiengine Instructor
Small Unmanned Aircraft System
FAASTeam (FAA Safety Team) Lead Representative

Building Science

BPI Certified Building Analyst Instructor and Exam Proctor
Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code (MUBEC) Training Program Author and Instructor
Building Operator Certification (BOC) Instructor
U.S. DOE Energy Star Buildings Consultant and Instructor

Awards

2011 FAASTeam Representative of the Year - Portland Flight Standards District Office (FSDO)
2013 FAASTeam Representative of the Year - Portland Flight Standards District Office (FSDO)
2013 FAASTeam Representative of the Year - Eastern Region

I am a Co-founder and the Chief Academic Officer at WINGsReality EDU.  I grew up in Waterville, Maine and fell in love with aviation at a very young age.  The house that I grew up in was right under the approach and departure path for one of  the runways at our local airport, so there was always a lot of low flying aircraft in the neighborhood.  I loved the airplane noise and was always curious about what was going on in the cockpits of those airplanes.  When I got old enough to ride my bike across town I would ride to the airport, sit in the grass on the other side of the fence, and watch the airplanes take off and land.  I promised myself that when I got older, if it took all of the money I had, I would fly.  

When I was 19 years old I moved to San Diego.  Later, I wound up buying a house up at Lake Tahoe in a little town called Truckee.  Once again I was right down the street from the airport, and found myself listening to low flying airplanes again.  The bug was back!  One day, as I was watching the airplanes flying low overhead I thought about the promise I had made to myself when I was a little boy.  Well, it was just like being struck by lightning (which ironically has happened to me twice)!  I decided that I needed to keep that promise I made to myself as a kid.  I got in the car and drove down to the Tahoe Truckee Airport and got some information about flight instruction.  I did a bunch of research, chatted with some pilot friends,  and within a few weeks I was in ground school and started flying!  My alma mater airport was Gillespie Field in El Cajon, California.  I learned to fly there.  It was a busy, tower controlled airport just outside of San Diego and within eye shot of the Mexican border.  I got to know some of the Air Traffic Controllers there and became very much interested in that line of work.  I attended Southwestern College in an aeronautical engineering program with focus in air traffic control.  I came out of that program with a 4.0 GPA, and was fast tracked for training at the FAA Academy with positioning in Maine.  My brief career in air traffic was cut short by the cancellation of my position.  My dreams of an $80,000 a year retirement were shattered, and I knew that I had to become a flight instructor so I could eat mac and cheese out of a box for the next five years until I could move up the pilot ladder (that's just how it worked back then)!  

So here I am!  Over the years I built my certificates and ratings, flew all over the U.S., taught hundreds of people how to fly, and have just had a ball with every minute of it!  Becoming a pilot is definitely the coolest thing I have ever done in my life.  Every time I climb into an airplane, it is just as much fun as it was the very first time I did it.  It just never gets old.  And now I get to co-own and operate the coolest business in aviation!  I get to share my creativity and love of flying in a very unique way that no one else can.  I am blessed, humbled, and honored to work with every one of you, and to be able to do what I love the most every day!