AT COMMUTEAIR, WE HAVE GREAT PEOPLE WITH GREAT STORIES TO SHARE.
Maintenance at C5 – Mike Rouley
A career in maintenance isn’t something everyone considers; its long, hard, manual labor – but the end results can be very rewarding.
For 34 years, Mike Rouley, Line Maintenance Supervisor, has been an essential part of CommuteAir’s maintenance team. Currently he is based in Albany, but that hasn’t always been the case.
Rouley started with CommuteAir on October 1, 1990, in Plattsburg, New York, not as a mechanic, but as a detailer.
“I started out as a washer, detailer and fueler, later becoming the chief detailer. Then, I got my apprenticeship and became a mechanic. After a while I went into maintenance control,” said Rouley.
According to Rouley, he was responsible for opening the Newark, Dulles and Syracuse bases. He opened the bases and stayed there running them until the staffing capabilities to maintain them without his assistance existed.
Rouley has been in his current position of Line Maintenance Supervisor for 28 years and getting to experience the change in the airline industry over time has been both beneficial and fun experiences.
Albany is mainly an ‘A’ Check maintenance base, and he assists with them on a day-to-day basis. According to Rouley, ‘A’ Checks occur every 500 flight hours and involve detailed inspections and servicing of various systems such as avionics, flight control, emergency equipment, landing gear, ice and rain protection, and hydraulics, among others. These checks are pivotal in keeping the aircraft safe and airworthy.
Rouley said patience, resilience and “always wanting to learn,” are among the top skills incoming maintenance technicians need to have and practice to be successful; something he exhibits at work every day.
Over time, Rouley has come to appreciate CommuteAir for how much they care about employees and their family, having multiple experiences himself that cemented his appreciation.
“Having a disabled son, they’ve always let me have time off if I needed to deal with his conditions,” said Rouley. “That was a big part of me wanting to stay, they really showed that they cared.”
“There was a time when I needed money, and I asked the secretary in the office if I could get an advance on my paycheck, and it was just after I had started. John Sullivan took $500 out of his pocket and said I could borrow it and pay it back when I could,” said Rouley. “It really stuck with me that they cared because with all the other companies nobody would have done that.”