Achieving Optimal Results with Aerospace Major Repair and Recovery

Hello, and welcome to the on tomorrow podcast brought to you by FEAM Aero. I'm your host Michelle Dawn Mooney. And today, we are talking about major repair and recovery, and I will tell you what. This is gonna be a conversation where you're going to learn just why major repair and recovery is pretty cool because we have two great guests. One is really in the mix as you will see. So I am really excited to bring them on. Michael Turpin is the vice president of major repairs and recovery for FEAM Aero. And Lindsey Gamel is director of operations for major repairs and recovery for FEAM Aero. Michael, Lindsey. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. Looking forward to this conversation. And Michael, you're really in the throes of everything. So let's start off with you. I like to get a brief background from our guests if we can. Can you start off, Michael, and just kinda give us a brief bio before we get started with the questions and answers? We got a high school. He joined the navy, and, did, I was a crew chief. On helicopters. And shortly after that, getting out, I went to McDonald Douglas and worked there for a while and then got into a a group called Rams, which was recovery modification services. And that pretty much kicked this off for me. Started traveling at a a fairly young age, and that led me to other jobs going down, you know, going down the line and, a few other positions previous to this. It and joint femme, May of last year. So I know it's kind of like super high level, but, yeah, I mean, I I would say that Rams definitely kicked this off for me. Wonderful. And what about you, Lindsey? Well, for myself, I'm newer to the major repairs and recovery division. I just joined with, Michael, in March of this year for FEMA. But I've been in the aviation industry for twenty plus years now. Most of my time has been spent with, heavy maintenance planning, so working for a couple different airlines, and then also some MRs around Florida. And really just digging into the nitty gritty of repairs and service bulletins and all of that fun stuff. So it kind of added to me coming and joining theme and, basically, in the background here, planning away and helping support the team and just excited for where it's gonna take us. Yeah. I'm excited for this conversation too and see where that's going to take us. So I wanna start off with a foundational question of sorts. What is major repairs and recovery? And then how does it differentiate from AOGs or aircraft on the ground because I'm learning all the the technology and the lingo here as I'm I'm having this conversation with you. So typically an AOG would be something categorized as, excuse me, as a, a relatively quick fix. For instance, if you're getting on an airplane and you're flying someplace and something breaks on the plane, that would be AOG. Your aircraft is out of service, and, you know, they've gotta do something to fix it. Where our projects take over is when there's been some major damage and it could be anything from a tail strike or, a winglet going through a horizontal, which is right here behind my left shoulder. And then, you know, you at that point, and what I've usually been saying to customers is that your airplane is broke. You're no longer AOG because AOG is something that we can take care of relatively quickly. You get me involved and typically I will be on-site for a month to three months. It really just depends on how bad the airplane is. So it's definitely a, I would say the larger the re the larger the repair, the longer we're gonna be there. One of the things that Mike and I were sort of tasked with doing was kind of defining what major repairs is so that we could differentiate this between an AOG or when our services are needed. And when we're going to basically bid it as a project bid. So the definition we sort of hammered out was any project where the scope of structural work extends past the SRM, which is the structural repair manual, or it requires a team to be assembled in the scope of work to be bid on a price per project basis. So that's kind of all encompassing the repairs that go outside of, you know, just an SRM fix, but also it encompasses, you know, your aircraft went off the side of the runway. And now we've gotta get a whole team together and and recover it and get it back on the TarMax so we can fix whatever broke. Okay. So now we know what major repairs and recovery entails. Let me ask you this. Why is this service so important to the industry? And then Why did FEMA want to invest in this service? Well, definitely, from from an industry standpoint, you know, you have a high dollar asset. That's making you money and depending on the size of the asset, it could be as much as fifty thousand dollars an hour. That this whether it's an a three twenty or a seven four seven or what have you, it's generating money. When it's sitting on the ground, it's not making any money. So it is definitely behooves the the the airline operators, the adjusters, the underwriters, and the aircraft lessors to get the airplane back in the air as quick as possible. Because even though it's broke, and you can pick any airline that's out there. But when the plane is broken, there's it's sitting on the ground and it's not making any money, they're still paying at least payment on that aircraft every month. So money's going out and money's not coming back in. Right. And I also think, just from my experience, in the short time of being in this this particular niche. It's rare. I mean, there's not a whole lot of companies out there that have the pertise and that have the tooling and have the ability to support such large scale projects And I think that's one of the reasons why, FEMero brought on Mike. Obviously, he's got thirty years doing this, so he's a wealth of knowledge. And just it's a it's a new branch to offer to our clients that, just really enhances our portfolio. Of what we can do and how we can support people. You know, I wanna dive a little deeper on that because both of you made some great points. Of course, bottom line, Michael, that you mentioned, you know, playing that's out of service is not making money. It's actually costing money. And then Lindsey, the fact that's not a lot of people are offering this service or companies rather. So Can you tell me more about what FEMA's major repairs and recovery team looks like? What are some of the team's capabilities And then what kind of global scope do these services really cover? Basically, what can you offer customers? Well, I can offer them anything that the OEM offers them, and the OEM being either Boeing or Airbus. And from a global aspect, We can deploy teams all over the world. Currently, I'm sitting in Germany with a team. We'll we'll be deploying a team to Los Angeles here shortly. We're bidding on an air pro or sorry, an aircraft project in India. So we have global reach to do this. Yeah. So it's it's one of those situations where the OEM can't do can't do at all. And I'll give you a perfect example. We do a lot of work for Airbus. We do work for both OEMs. Currently, one of them hands us work on a pretty consistent basis and the other one does not. And the backlog for work is actually driving more work to us because they are so busy that they can't get to aircraft until later this year. So that helps school our team up as well. I think that it's definitely a niche market. There may be one other company that does this And I I think we're literally starting to pull the market share our our way just based upon the size of the company. I mean, we're I think seventeen hundred strong now, you know, twenty two lines or, sorry, thirty two only stations in the US and twenty plus over here in Europe. This entire crew that I'm working with right now is all from Europe. So none of none of my crew from the States came over here. And that's helps because now we've got a team that can deploy in the US if something happens without affecting the crews that are over here. Which is pretty awesome because we've got a lot of projects in queue, and we're probably going to have to pull on them soon. But also to add to what Michael said, as far as our reach and our scope, we have strategically, purchased tooling to support anything from an eighty down. So the seven forty seven triple sevens, all the big births, as well as the narrow body aircraft. And we also have go kits, essentially, their their tooling kits stationed in both Europe and in the US. So it's strategically placed that wherever the repair is wherever we win the bid, we can dispatch not only the manpower, but also the equipment that's necessary. So we're very, diversified in that regard. Our our footprint is, like Mike said, global, and we're just expanding. Female was, very dedicated to making this happen in the right way and giving us the tools and resources we needed to kick start it. And we did so pretty quickly. That is that is a fact. When I came over in in May, well, actually June sixth with my first start my first day starting here. I walked in the door with a stack of POs. For the material that that we needed to do this. And literally everything we purchased everything that I asked for, and then some And I, you know, proceeded to start building these kits. And as we were building the kits and and looking at them and and starting to really understand the, you know, the the actual depth of what we had purchased. At at that point there, I made the decision that, okay, we're gonna work. We're gonna build two kits. And we'll place one in Europe. Some very simple. Keep one here in the States because from a a a strategic standpoint, that allows me to now when I'm bidding a project, I cut out a lot of the, the cost for shipping of tooling. So now all I've gotta do is just move the team, and the tools will be here somewhere here in Germany so they can travel throughout the the twenty six EU nations without any issues. And there won't be, I can, you know, from a an invoice standpoint, and I start it gives me the ability to start, you know, charging less and less and less, but not really hurting our bottom line. So it's a again, it was a a it was a strategic stand for a strategic point to to come to, but I don't think it really happened until we started seeing how much stuff I actually purchased. And then it was like, okay. Wait a minute. We can really start to, you know, really expand this thing faster than what we, initially thought. The initial, when I first joined the company, the initial thought was like, hey, look, you know, we kind of expect it's gonna take you we think a year, year and a half, maybe two years before you start getting projects. And I literally looked at the guys in their room, and I said, There is no way it's gonna take us that long. It's just if it takes us that long, I'm gonna think there is something wrong. And four months later, we were neck deep in three projects that I ended up calling I called everybody and said, listen, we're taking a massively huge swing here. If I call you and tell you I need something or I send an email, All I need to hear from you is yes. That's it. And because, I mean, we're taking a huge swing. I mean, we took on three projects simultaneously And I it was for me, personally, it was the absolute biggest thing I'd ever done because typically, you know, these projects are one off. You know, and, to take on three at once was I would say, again, personally, it was it was the absolute biggest swing I've ever attended in my life because they it doesn't happen like that. I mean, that that's OEM type of repairs taken on taken on that many at one shot. And and here we are, this small you know, this small company, I mean, seventeen hundred people, but, you know, this small company, and now it's like, I step in and we're going no. We're going straight, you know, we're going straight to the moon now. Not we're not passing, you know, we're not passing anything. We're going straight to the top because it it's they've given me the ability to do that. It's really incredible to see how much has been accomplished in just a short time. So I'm really curious, are there any examples of some specific events that FEMA's major repair and recovery team has successfully performed recently, which we're not going that far back because you've really only been doing this a short time. As I mentioned earlier, the the three projects that we we picked up literally on top of each other were a tail strike on a a three twenty one neo. A bird strike on an a three twenty one c o, which is just the the model change for the engine, and a a, a damaged a three thirty that was hit by a catering truck. So three totally different types of repairs. The tail strike and the bird strike, I did simultaneously over here in Europe. So and similar to what I showed you earlier, I mean, I I had both airplanes were side by side. So I had two crews out here running two major repairs simultaneously. And about two weeks into it, the a three thirty was damaged in Canada. And so I pulled a handful of people out of out of Miami. I pulled a handful of people off of the cruise here in Germany or, well, here in Europe, sorry, and sent them to Montreal to do that repair. So we were we were working three large scale repairs simultaneously. At this time, some of the other projects we have in queue are, right now, a big wing corrosion repair. And, we have some support for an OEM, on another huge repair project. And then we're also possibly gonna take on, no steer collapse that recently happened as well as some service bulletin work, for a, frame sixty five basically, reinforcement structure. And another tail strike. And another tail strike. So we've got like ten other projects sort of in queue at different, stages of, of the launch project. So Yeah. It's it's been very busy to say the least. It's a miracle that I even was able to show up looking like I have my life put together today. Hopefully, no more catering truck incidents, and I can't help to think what happened to the catering driver if if they still have a job or not. But let's that's another discussion. So thankfully, no one was hurt. I mean, everybody's doing well else. So let's get personal for a minute. And, you know, Lindsey, you talked about, I'm surprised that I can can show up and look like everything's together because you too are both so busy. What is it like for both of you to be a part of the major repair and recovery team and seeing the fruits of your labor? Any particular moment or moments maybe that's stick out to you? Again, I mean, I would absolutely circle back to the three the three repairs concurrently. For me, that is just it sticks out as a major accomplishment because it again, as I said earlier, it was a major swing. It was a huge swing that we took because, you know, if you think about just the sheer magnitude of the repairs, I mean, two months, on both of those aircraft and four weeks on the other, but the allotment of head count, the allotment of the tooling, and just bringing that all together and having all three of them go down successfully for me was a I I would call it definitely one of my larger milestones, if you wanna call it that. I mean, it it it was a big accomplishment for us, for the team, and for the company. Because, again, I I've been here four months, and it was a listen guys were taking a big swing. And they the the entire company had my back, without any questions. I mean, and and then I think that's a a key piece of as well is that it is a it's a one hundred percent team effort. I mean, there's no way that, you know, I could do this by myself. And now that we're growing, you know, I mean, I had to get help in here because I I can see where this is going, and it's not, you know, it's not gonna slow down. This is just gonna continue to grow where, I mean, at some point, you know, I can see where we may need a a third team, a third project manager so that we're able to bounce around at a moment's notice. Just working in heavy maintenance planning, it was always such a beautiful moment when you pushed that airplane back and it took flight again for the first time after, you know, seeing a completely dismantled going through all of the different, inspection checks, getting put back together, repainted, all of all of that. It was such a labor of love throughout that whole process. And seeing at Fly again always just brought me so much joy. I'm this is probably corny as hell, but I would even get emotional about it. Just because I am a self proclaimed Ave geek. It's in my blood, and I love it. So anyway, being part of this team now just takes it to a whole another level. Now it's not scheduled maintenance checks. This is whoopsies, you know, whoopsie moments. So this poor airplane just like got a catering truck to the side or, you know, smashed to hard landing. So even more reason why I enjoy being part of the process of getting it back in the air again. Back and it's happening. Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, I I think I mean, I I've said this within the group. I won't say it here, but you know, I I have a a different take on it, which is, you know, when when you go as a mechanic and then, you know, obviously moving up through the ranks. But when you go someplace, and you do a wing splice or you do you do a tail strike or you change out a complete lower lobe on an a three twenty. When you get done and you watch, as Lindsey said, but you watch that thing, you know, taxi down taxi down the taxiway, and go down the runway and rotate out, you know, that every single time that gets me. And, and I've said it, I mean, the the crews that we have are heavy hitters. I mean, they're a strong group of guys and gals that know what they do and and and really appreciate the fact that you know, you've just taken a a damaged airplane, done a wing splice or done a tail strike repair and re re replace the hole back into the plane or the whole nose section and watch that thing take off again and fly. It's hard to convey. It's manageable. Yeah. It's but it's hard to convey the feeling that that that puts out there because it's You know, I mean, it it's a I don't know. I mean, it's amazing. You know, that the the work that we do is truly amazing. I mean, again, I've I've got other adjectives that I use. For this group, but I won't put it out there. No. But I'm gonna put in a plug for our team here and just you know, give a shout out to our magicians that work with us. I think sheet metal has A lot of people just kind of, they're sheet metal, you know, they do structures work, and a lot of people don't under Anne, it's an art form to it. And these guys are they are, you know, magical. So we like Mike said, we have heavy hitters team. They know what they're doing. And the work that they do is incredible, best quality, and also just the things that they're able to do and accomplish is is next level. So we're happy to have our whole team. That's also, I'm just also gonna say growing. So any other magical sheet workers out there that wanna join, you know, the theme arrow team, then you know where to find us. Perfect. Perfect. And Michael, you know, I couldn't help but think the first thing that came to mind when you talked about the story of of just, you know, Lindsey, you mentioned the word magical, but you know, seeing the plane take off, I feel like, you know, when you have an injured bird and you release it into the wild, that's the first thing that kinda came to mind. It gotta be that same feeling because it's it's your baby for a certain amount of time working on it and then to see it come back to its original life is is pretty awesome. So As we wrap up here, what does the future hold? What is theme looking to change or update or add to the mix? Of course, employees, it sounds like Lindsay are growing. You're gonna add some more team members, but what does that look like down the road or or runway to use a nice little airplane term there? We are at a point where we could literally grow this as much as we wanted to. For me, honestly, I'd love to be in a position where we had four or five teams traveling all the time. And just bouncing around from place to place, fixing airplanes. I mean, you know, some of the guys and gals have they're they're like, hey. When am I gonna get out of a job? And I said, listen, that's not the question you need to be asking me. Right now, the question is, you know, when is the next job? Because what's gonna happen here at some point is, hey, boss, can I get some time off? And I'm gonna be like, no. But it didn't but that's where we're headed. I mean, we're headed to that point where, literally, the the cruise can be traveling is as little or as as much as they want. And I again, as I said earlier, it's just gonna get I it's just gonna get bigger because it it's we can grow this as much as we wanna grow it, and that for me is the the really interesting part of it because I feel like it literally is just it's it's limitless. We we could make this as big as we want, or we could stay a, you know, a relatively small niche and and keep the keep the boys busy and traveling and just go fix airplanes. I think to tee off of that, really what what differentiates us from other providers who offer the same services. Number one, we pride ourselves on our customer service, our communication with their clients we want them to walk away after one of these major repairs and just be thrilled happy that we finished on time or earlier, with budget, you know, in mind and all of these things. And not only that, just working with our team. They're a great bunch of guys and girls. And, that is what we're prying ourselves on. I think the most. So word-of-mouth is spreading. And like Mike said, we're we're definitely at this point, it's almost it's almost to the point where we're having to put jobs in queue because we have so many going on, which is why we're growing our team. But then I would say just on the horizon, one of our one of our projects that we're trying to tee up right now, is having a heavy structures team on-site at our CVG location so that, yes, they'll be part of the MRR team. So they'll be able to dispatch to work on any projects that we have, you know, throughout the world. But also just to provide that level of support and that level of expertise on that airfield, which is growing rapidly. I mean, it's it's the freighter hub right now for the US. And incidents happen all the time, whether it's a, you know, ground service equipment that crashed into an aircraft or you know, any other sort of situations, that occur on that very busy airfield. We just wanna be able to have the expertise and have the manpower right there to dispatch locally, and and take care of all of our clients there. So that is the newest thing on the horizon. Developing that whole capability and team. And then like Mike said, the sky is the limit. I mean, we hope to just keep going and make this as successful as possible, and FEMA is obviously giving us the support we need. So here we go. It's exciting to see once again where you've brought this in just a short amount of time and really exciting to think about the future and, you know, both mentioned limitless. So I can't help but think that people might be listening to this podcast and they want more information. They have questions, where is the best place for them to go? Or if they wanna reach out to either of you or or to femero, what can they do and where can they go to do that? You know, you need to get ahold of us, or if you're interested in joining the the MRR team, which is major repair and recoveries, feel free to reach out either via the via LinkedIn and or, the company's website, which is beam dot arrow. Perfect. Michael Turpin, by president of major repairs and recovery for FEMA Arrow and Lindsey Gamel director of operations major repairs and recovery for FEMA Arrow. Wanna thank both of you for your time. Really As I said before, use the word exciting. It is so exciting though to hear what you've been doing and you can tell that both of you are just really passionate about this. And I am excited for the future of the repair and recovery team because clearly you love what you're doing and you wanna help more planes that are that are meeting uncertain fate. So thank you for your time. Great conversation, and I'm sure you're gonna have a lot of people with more questions and wanting to learn more information. So I appreciate you being here today. Great. Thank you, Michelle. Appreciate it. Wanna thank all of you for tuning in and listening to Beyond MRO podcast brought to you by FEAM Aero. Of course, you can go to their website theme dot arrow And, of course, subscribe to this podcast to hear more great conversations. I'm your host Michelle Dawn Mooney. Thanks again for joining asked, we hope to see you soon.