Fast 5: Growing From Mechanic To VP At American Airlines

Cedric Wilson was recently appointed vice president of safety systems, efficiency and compliance at American Airlines after a more than 27-year career that began as an overhaul support mechanic. He spoke with Aviation Week about the transition from the shop floor to various leadership roles and the importance of demonstrating career path opportunities to new technicians.

Before making your way into leadership roles at American, you started out as an overhaul support mechanic. What sparked your interest in aviation maintenance and how did you initially begin your journey into the industry?

I started out working on cars, not because I necessarily wanted to but because I had to. When you have to purchase used cars, you have to find your way around them. That sparked my interest in fixing and working on things, and that’s how I [eventually] got to aviation and airplanes.

American has a pretty big aircraft maintenance facility in Tulsa, so I moved there from Dallas and started out working in the engine shop. At the time we were overhauling [Pratt & Whitney] JT8D engines, which we had on our MD-80s as well as our Fokker 100s. From a widebody perspective, we worked on GE CF6 engines, which were on our [Boeing] 767 fleet. So, I started tearing down engines and building them back up.

What was the transition like as you began to take on leadership roles? What were the biggest differences moving from working directly on aircraft to managing operations?

For me, it was always about doing a good job. Once you consistently do a good job, people begin to notice. Quite frankly, I had no real desire to go into management. I wasn’t opposed to it, but it just wasn’t something that I saw on my radar. Be that as it may, when you do a good job people start to see things in you that you may not see in yourself. As opportunities presented themselves, there were leaders who saw me and thought I had a lot more potential. They helped me take the next step into management ranks.

It was definitely a big jump. I was around 22 or 23 and had only been a mechanic for about three years. I went into management and was leading mechanics who were at least twice my age with 30 years’ experience, so it was a challenge in the sense that leaders typically come from the floor, but they’ve worked 20 years. It was a bit of a transition, but it was really good because at the end of the day, it’s about how you communicate and deal with people. We’re all humans, and once you treat people like humans, you begin to easily learn the job. They’ll tell you everything that you want to know—and what you don’t. But I was able to be successful at it because I think it’s about how you treat people.

One of the MRO workforce issues I’ve heard a lot about recently is overall juniority of the workforce, and some stakeholders have expressed concern that this growing inexperience is leading to safety and quality issues. As someone focused on safety in your new role at American, how can airlines or other aftermarket companies bridge this gap and improve safety performance?

From a juniority perspective, I think everyone is experiencing that right now. When I came in, I didn’t know everything there was to know either. It’s really about the process of training, and I think we have a pretty robust program centered around training when we bring in new mechanics. The airplanes are also a lot smarter now, so they almost troubleshoot themselves. I think the newer aircraft actually make it a little easier for mechanics to learn how to work on those new fleet types. An MD-80 versus working on a 787 are two different things, almost like a computer vs. something like a Tonka truck. From that perspective, there’s no concern in my book, but it’s just around a robust training program and getting them ready.

The juniority issue has also raised concerns that it may lead to issues down the line with not having enough qualified talent for management roles. How do you think companies can help prepare younger technicians for leadership paths?

I think they have to be tapped early on like I was. At the time, I was able to be paired up with a senior, tenured leader, so I was able to learn, and there’s nothing that prevents us from doing that today. When you get tapped young, I think you just have to be put in situations where you can learn the business and how to lead. I went through so many training classes as a young leader that were very interactive and situational that helped me get up to speed relatively quickly. It’s really about how robust the training program is when they come in. I don’t really see [juniority] as the big hindrance it’s being made out to be.

When it comes to attaining a long-term career path in the industry, what advice would you give to young people who are training for or just started their MRO careers?

There are so many things to do [in aviation]. It’s really about your own personal passion. If you want to be an AMT for the next 40 years you can do that, and it’d be a very rewarding career path. But if you desire, there are different things you can do as a mechanic, such as quality control, crew chief or lead jobs and technical crew chiefs, where you become an expert on a specific fleet or system. If you desire to jump into different roles, the opportunity is there as well, and it goes across any discipline. We have quite a few big divisions, but TechOps is pretty broad. There’s supply chain, engineering, planning (e.g. aircraft maintenance, planning and routing), dispatch and a whole variety of things. On top of that, even if you came in as a mechanic, when you start to get into some of the entry-level leadership roles it can transition across multiple organizations.

It’s all about a person deciding what they want to do. If [someone] starts out as a mechanic, does it for 10 years and decides they want to go into finance, you have to get some training and a little education around that, but it’s possible to do. The airline has every job opportunity that corporate America would have, including marketing, corporate real estate, communications and finance. Often, when you talk to people who are unfamiliar [with aviation], they think it’s more about pilots and flight attendants, but there’s a lot more going on in the airline. The sky is really the limit for anybody to jump in, so don’t be afraid to say yes to an opportunity.

You can read other interesting AMT career pathway stories from Aviation Week Network's 2024 Aviation Maintenance Technician Day feature here.