Aspire MRO CEO Phil Bathurst
Phil Bathurst, CEO of Aspire MRO, talks to Aviation Week Network about his lessons learned ascending to leadership roles throughout the aftermarket and which factors he thinks are most important in attracting young people to MRO industry careers.
What got you interested in aviation, and how did you get your start in the industry?
I was home from school one summer and my friend’s father owned a company that did avionics work for small aircraft. I started a summer job where I learned how to install avionics equipment and do pitot static checks on small Cessna 150s, then I started doing corporate jets and then it just went from there.
I don't have my airframe and powerplant (A&P). My direction was through avionics and electronics, so I did a lot of electrical work and then got my FCC license and so forth. Early on in my career, I had the option to go for my A&P license and chose not to. I was told by several senior leaders, “You'll never be able to be much in the industry without that,” but I also had other leaders I work with who said, “We'll work with what you have,” and I was still able to come up through the ranks. Though, if I were advising anyone younger now, I think that's a very important ticket to have. It really makes you marketable to the workforce.
Throughout your career you’ve held a variety of roles across the aftermarket, including leadership roles in operations at MROs, OEMs and even software companies. What was it like climbing the ladder from the shop floor to senior management positions?
It was all about opportunities and doing more. Early on in my career, I was at TIMCO, which was my first large step at a commercial MRO. We were doing installations, and I became the manager of the avionics department with 150 staff. I think, career-wise, what people have to learn is you can be the most skilled mechanically or avionics-wise, but if you don't have the people skills or you don't have the business understanding, you're behind the power curve. We even see that here at Aspire. We'll have guys that are outstanding mechanics and think they will be a great lead and it [ends up being] one of the bigger mistakes we make, because we lost a good mechanic and we added someone that wasn't a very good lead.
I worked for a director of maintenance at TIMCO early in my career, and one day, avionics was just humming and I had a great team. He walked up to me and said, “Hey, Phil, just out of curiosity, what level of effort are you putting in?” And me, being cocky and young, said, “Maybe 50%.” He goes, “So everything's just running on its own and the team's going and everything?” I said yes, and he said, “You know what? Tomorrow, you have all the shops. You have composites, interiors and every support shop to the airplane.” So, some of my promotions were just lucky, being in the right place at the right time. But a lot of them were about being surrounded by a good team that put good processes in place [where] I didn't have to be that guy making decisions on a daily basis.
I learned early on my career, when I was responsible for a facility, that when you come into a facility and you don't know anybody, bring some people you know. I think the other thing is to have a team, understand your team and be prepared to adapt. You'll see some young leaders who think, “I'm going to do it my way, regardless of what people want to do, because I know my way is best.” I think if you look at leaders who are really successful, you have to go in, understand the culture and then decide what you want to do. I don't know if you've ever read the book the The First 90 Days, but typically, almost every job I go into, I reread that book, and it's really about what you do in the first 90 days of your job to be successful.
What advice would you give to young people who are interested in aviation, but don’t yet know what a career path for them might look like?
I had a group of high school students here in the Dallas area who came into our facility last year, and they were there for about four hours. We showed them everything, because a lot of people say “aviation,” but that is so broad now: supply chain, mechanic, pilot, whatever it might be. This one young man really stood out. He said, “Would you mind giving me your business card so I can contact you later?” Last night, he contacted me via email and said, “I'll be a senior in the fall, and our school allows us to be an apprentice or work in the afternoon at your facility. Would you be interested in allowing me to do that?” Well, heck yeah, I would be, because it's someone younger showing interest. To me, that's a big thing.
If you're interested, show the interest. Understand that the people who have been in the business a long time want to show people [how it works]. My big thing now is mentoring. When you see someone who wants [an opportunity in the aviation industry], I will do everything I can to make that person successful. If you're interested in something, ask, but try to fine-tune it. If someone says they’re interested in aviation, I could say, “My CFO is next door. Our [vice president] of supply chain is right down the hall. Do you want to learn that? What are you really interested in?” And if you don't know, try to investigate a little bit, or come into a facility and see what we do.
Before you launched Aspire MRO, you were working on the technology side of the aftermarket at EmpowerMX. How have you seen technology transform the MRO industry over the years, and what up-and-coming technologies excite you most for the future?
To me, the biggest change is the automation and acquisition of data on the maintenance side. Back in the day, we would have to go through checks and have someone pull all this data together, whereas now I'm using EmpowerMX here, and every minute I know where my 500 mechanics are. But on top of that, as soon as that's done, we have other data to compare to it, so we're always looking at improvements when you gather that data live. The biggest difference to me with that is we used to go into meetings and a report would come up, and if it was very positive or very negative, there'd be a 15-min. debate about whether the report was correct and how that information was gathered. The majority of the report is now automated. It allows employees who might have been spending an hour or two doing a report to actually focus on the constraints they have in their airplane. It hasn't really changed the workflow of the airplanes or anything, it's just automated it and made it simpler. And on the other side, I think the technology that’s really cool is dent mapping and drone inspections.
The MRO industry frequently talks about the workforce shortage and how it needs to reach young people and inspire them to pursue aviation careers. In your opinion, what is the most important thing companies need to be doing to keep the passion for aviation technical careers alive?
I'm going to keep preaching culture. You have to be a place people want to work. For example, in Brazil, if you were going to school and you had the right grades, your aspiration was [to work at] Embraer, and they got the best and brightest. What we'd like to do is have that same culture here.
After being in the industry a while, one of my big learning experiences is that I want to think I know things, but culturally, I'm behind the curve. Different things matter for the younger guys that are coming in. I think it's sometimes hard [understanding that] what drives us doesn't drive the current workforce. If you want to get the younger folks in you've got to accept that. You can't just say, “This is how we do business because it was good for me.”
We also want to try to tie people to mentors, because we've seen the relationship between a younger mechanic and an older mechanic works really well if you can get the right people involved. We want to have the right culture, but we also want to do the training and make sure that not only are they an A&P and ready to go, but they understand how we expect to do things. And if we've got to spend a couple months going through that, then it's worth it in the long run.
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