Why We Fly
At FlightAware, we believe that flying opens up the world around you. It makes distances shorter, the world more accessible, and satisfies one of the core aspirations of mankind. Our employees don’t just work in the aviation industry or on aviation projects, they have a passion for it.
Many of our team members are already licensed pilots or on their way to getting their license. Our Flight Education Assistance Program helps to offset some of the expenses associated with personal flying. In addition, the FlightAware Flying Alliance is a group of employees who organize monthly fly-outs outside of work hours, exposing many employees to flying as well as getting to know one another.
We're passionate about sharing the joy of flight, whether that means supplementing instruction costs, inviting fellows employee to fly along, or just geeking out on the latest aviation news together. With that, we'd like to introduce some of our (ever-growing) FlightAware pilots!
Introducing Trey Hunt, an Aviation Sales representative at FlightAware. Trey has been fascinated by aviation for as long as he can remember and has always wanted to get his pilot's license. During his last semester of high school, he began and finished flight training, receiving his pilot license in May 2010. Trey was able to fly frequently while in college and working line service and soon he hopes to be able to fly more often than a few times a year. Prior to joining FlightAware, Trey held a position in owner services for a fractional operator, as well as spent some time in sales and scheduling for a charter/management company.
A few of Trey's flight accomplishments include:
* Solo'd for 9 hours
* High performance and complex endorsements
* Approximately 400 hours total time
Meet Richard Westmoreland, FlightAware Software Engineer. Richard began his career in aviation as a flight attendant at the former Colgan Air. During that time, he became inspired by the pilots that he worked with and in 2012 obtained his private pilot’s license. When Colgan went out of business, Richard moved out to Vero Beach, Florida, and got all of his other ratings (Instrument, Commercial, multi-engine, CFI, CFI-I, and MEI). Returning to Houston, he took up a role as a flight instructor for a year. In 2014 Richard flew cargo for Air Cargo Carriers in a Shorts 360 aircraft, and from 2015-2020 he worked for SkyWest as a first officer for two years and a captain for three years on the CRJ.
Richard joined the FlightAware team in 2020 and is loving using his firsthand experience to improve and implement new systems. He is enjoying being back to flying for fun.
Meet Bryce Nelson, Sales Operations Manager at FlightAware. Bryce has had a lifelong passion for aviation that likely stemmed from annual summer vacations that included flying on airlines and long layovers at busy airports. In college, he got his first job as a line service technician at a local FBO and shortly after achieved his private pilot certificate in 2010.
After graduating from college, Bryce moved to Houston to join the FlightAware sales team. He took time off from piloting to start a family but rejoined the general aviation community when FlightAware began offering flying benefits to employees. In 2020 he bought a Piper Lance with two other partners and is currently working toward his instrument rating.
What he enjoys most about flying is the ability to travel with his wife, three kids, and their dog to obscure and interesting weekend destinations throughout Texas and the South that are otherwise less accessible by car or airline.
Meet Collin White, Senior Director of Aviation Services at FlightAware. "I'm not sure where the aviation roots started for me, but most of everything I have seen in aviation can be attributed to FlightAware in some way." Back in 2005, Collin registered for this "cool website" where you could track planes, not only that were right over you, but anywhere in the US; he had never seen anything like that. He started exploring aviation photo sites, flipped through magazines, and played Microsoft Flight Simulator; All. The. Time. In 2006 Collin was gifted a discovery flight and after lifting off the runway, he knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
Unfortunately, spending a ton of money to pay for career pilot training was not in the cards. After browsing FlightAware one night, Collin saw an aircraft registered to a flight school and started to investigate how to get his private pilot license. He started the course in 2007, and in a little over 6 months obtained his Private Pilot’s license. "During my training, I came across a job listing to work at FlightAware and couldn’t believe there was an opportunity to work for this company that I was so enthralled with and be able to have a job somewhere within aviation." Collin is still at the place that brought him down this path 15 years ago and now tries to regularly fly his Cherokee around the skies of Houston, albeit "mostly to go eat."
Max has logged hundreds of hours in various aircraft types. He enjoys the freedom that comes with flying and the accessibility it provides. These days, Max is mostly flying for fun, usually to grab a delicious lunch at a remote airport somewhere (which seems to be a common theme with our FlightAware crew).