This past May, I was in Kansas City, MO, on May 24 for American Airlines’ AMT Day celebrations. American had a ceremony where it honored six of its Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award recipients. The ceremony included the dedication of a bust of Charles Taylor and a wall of fame where AA Master Mechanic award recipients will be placed.
It was great to see all of the different AMT Day celebrations throughout the country this year. You can go to page 61 to read about some of the AMT Day events. It is also good to see that the general public was educated on Charles Taylor and aircraft maintenance professionals through a variety of in-flight publications. For example, Southwest Airlines placed an ad in its May in-flight magazine Spirit honoring the first aircraft mechanic Charles E. Taylor. In the ad, it also thanked its 1,500 mechanics and all mechanics around the world for keeping Taylor’s mission of excellence, safety, and innovation going strong.
American Airlines Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey wrote an editorial titled “Unsung Heroes” in the June issue of American Way — American Airlines’ in-flight magazine. In it, Arpey told of Taylor’s contribution to making powered flight possible by designing and building the engine for the Wright Flyer. He also told them of the dedication to safety and professionalism of American mechanics.
Frontier Airlines highlighted its aircraft mechanics in the May/June issue of its in-flight magazine Wild Blue Yonder. Jeff Potter congratulated the 388 maintenance professionals at Frontier for receiving the FAA Diamond Award of Excellence for the eighth consecutive year. He also thanked retired Frontier employee (and current AMTSociety executive director) Tom Hendershot for his hard work and dedication in getting Frontier to participate in the program and to document all of the training and paperwork for the awards program.
With all of this year’s celebrations, it’s hard to believe we still don’t have a national AMT Day resolution. Can you imagine the amount of publicity that would be generated by having President George W. Bush signing a national AMT Day resolution into law?
So, how can you help ensure the national AMT Day resolution gets passed? First, you need to click here and read Bill O’Brien’s article Open Letter: AMT Recognition for a start. Second, don’t just sit there after reading the article! Write to your senators and representative and ask them to support HRES # 444. Together, we can make this happen!
Thanks for reading!
