Age: 31
Years in Aviation: 8
Risto Maeots is chief operating officer at Magnetic MRO in Estonia. Before Magnetic MRO he worked at Air Maintenance Estonia as a mechanic, workshop engineer, workshops manager, and director of planning and support.
At the age of 16 he started in national rally series and became part of a professional team working with great drivers and top engineers. When it was time to decide on further studies and his future career, he felt that the next step in engineering could only be aviation. During his early studies Maeots received the Monte Mitchell Global Scholarship through the Aircraft Electronics Association. This financial aid gave a great boost to his studies. He attended Estonian Aviation Academy (BSe) and Tallinn University of Technology (MSe). But he says the greatest trainer has been the industry itself. The first years of his professional career included training by many different OEMs (Honeywell, Meggitt, Messier, Goodrich, Boeing, etc.). The last few years has included valuable management and leadership training.
Maeots has had and still has several mentors, “mainly people from different industries and different backgrounds.”
Magnetic MRO attends various industry conferences and that has given Maeots the chance to speak on supply chain partnerships, best practices in component maintenance, and utilizing new technologies to improve productivity. “I do participate actively in work-groups aimed to develop and support the national aviation industry,” he says. “Estonia is a small and young country in the industry, a lot needs to be done in order to change the course and mindsets.”
As for his career goals, he says, “There is a famous saying: It doesn`t matter how many resources you have if you don`t know how to use them, they will never be enough. Looking back, then I can say that my achievements have been aligned with this statement and my future goal would be to master the art of knowing the capacity of resources which surround me – what comes after that is product of imagination.”
