Nathan Hewitt started his career in aviation when he was 19 years old. Originally planning to pursue a career in information technology, he instead was bit by the aviation bug.
“I moved to Abilene, Texas, to live with my brother. While I was there, he got me a job as an aircraft cleaner, and probably within two months, maybe less, I had elected to change my career field from information technology over to aviation to get my airframe and power plant license,” he said.
After three years as a mechanic, Hewitt elected to step up into more of a leadership role as a crew chief, which he undertook for roughly a year and a half, before deciding to advance his career into a management role. Continuing to rise through the ranks from his origins as aircraft cleaner, aircraft mechanic, to lead technician, then crew chief, and supervisor, MOC controller and MOC manager on duty, Hewitt eventually landed a position as a maintenance manager at DFW, where he is today.
“And so now I’m responsible for over 200 mechanics. We have over 200 flights daily and I have a supervisory staff of 16 supervisors that I’m responsible for. We establish manning requirements for all of our scheduled and unscheduled aircraft. So out of those 200-plus flights, we’re doing scheduled and unscheduled maintenance in a 24/7 maintenance operation. We also have an overnight operation, where we have up to eight aircraft at night that we’re continuously working on and ensuring that they’re ready for their kickoffs,” Hewitt detailed.
On any given day, his role sees him tackling many different and varied challenges.
“Aviation is so very diverse in the challenges that you encounter. The amount of challenges and aspects that I get to deal with on a daily basis vary anywhere from troubleshooting discrepant aircraft, to dealing with logistics regarding the flight schedule and coordinating with other departments. We work with logistics in road trips, and then I get to deal with personnel issues, as well as positive reinforcement through coaching and counseling, and mentoring. It goes literally anywhere from aircraft to people, to socializing, to professional networking, to communicating, to investigations, and there are new and unique challenges every day,” he said.
Hewitt said he wouldn’t have it any other way, and thrives in the fast-paced, challenging world of aviation. He enjoys most being able to make a positive impact on the people and operations he oversees.
“I would say, the most rewarding aspect of my position and what I've accomplished so far is the autonomy in my current position to make impactful decisions and positively influence the technicians all while communicating with various departments to create an environment for a successful operation,” he said.
