Why Aviation Maintenance Is the Next Generation's Best-Kept Career Secret | Jennifer Radtke, Boeing

The Lost Art Of The Skilled Trades - Episode 02 - Mini-Series - Jennifer Radtke - Audio Export [MP3] === First time in history that mechanic shortage has ever surpassed the pilot shortage, and we've projected 710,000 technicians are going to be needed in our industry. There are 45,000 flights every single day. I was thinking about the flight as I was going down the runway, and you're going 100-plus miles an hour. It's not about the individual things.

It's about that systems engineering aspect, but most importantly, it's about the mechanics and the preparation and the training that they've gone through. The integrity aspect is at the forefront. Jennifer Radke, functional chief engineer and product support engineering at Boeing. It's that dedication and the discipline to follow the process every time, every flight, every minute.

How important when it comes to coming up in this trade, uh, is mentorship? So mentoring is... Hi, I'm Andrew Brown. You're listening to the Lost Art of the Skilled Trades podcast, a show that shines the spotlight on careers in the skilled trades that are high-paying, honorable, rewarding, and fulfilling.

The trades are the backbone of the economy that keep us running, and without them, our world would cease to exist. Jennifer, there are 45,000 flights every single day. I kinda had to look that figure up, and that's a lot of flights. And I was flying here, uh, down to the AMC Championships, and I was thinking about the flight as I was going down the runway, and you're going 100-plus miles an hour, and I'm taking off, and I'm thinking about all the things that work together in an airplane.

How many things have to come together for an airplane to take off? That's a tough question, Andrew. So it's, it's not about the individual things. It's about that systems engineering aspect, but most importantly, it's about the mechanics and the preparation and the training that they've gone through to make sure that they have a safe, and then the integrity aspect is at the forefront and when they're doing their jobs.

So it's mostly focused on the safety and ensuring that they follow the processes that has been developed and standardized throughout the industry. Different fleets have different perspectives, different instructions, but most importantly, it's, it's that dedication and the discipline to follow the process every time, every flight, every minute. That pressure for a maintenance tech, right? 'Cause I'm thinking, like, in even in between flights, something doesn't work, they pull somebody in, everybody's on a t- a, a, you know, a time crunch at that point.

Like, what's going through... Like, you walked in those shoes before, years ago, and what is it like for somebody from a pressure standpoint to get that plane operational? Right. So in the beginning, when early career, the pressure is intense, and the- Those are the times when you, you start to know yourself, of what your limits are.

And over time, 100%, uh, you have to focus. You just have to get numb to the pressure, because it's going to be there. But you not only have to understand what's going on around you, you just need to focus and finish on the job that's at hand, and making sure that we stay true to what we've learned from, in the schooling, making sure that we, at the end of the day, ensure that that integrity and, again, that safety aspect is at the forefront. And so in the beginning of your career, it is something that it's, it's a learned.

You, you have to learn it. You have to feel it, to be honestly. You, you have to be embraced in all of that. Uh, I, I like to say i- in the beginning, you, you just have to embrace the suck.

It's going to happen. It is there. It is not going to change. You're gonna have 150-plus or lots of people on that aircraft looking at you, uh, for, for the maintenance delay.

You're, you're impeding their family vacations, and you're, and their dreams of what they want to go through. You're, you're messing up a, a business aspect. Or you're always the bad, you know, you, you get the bad, the bad guy or the bad girl hat. And honestly, you just have to stay strong.

You gotta thick, get thick skin about it and focus on that our job is to keep them safe, and that's it. Number one, safety. Safety. Does that get taught somewhere, like, that pressure?

Like, is it only you start to realize that on the job, or does school teach you that at all? So school will absolutely tell you this. They w- It's in books. It's in, uh, the immersive learning.

It's in all of the environments that you are being prepared for. But until you physically walk in those shoes and you feel it, you do not have that level of empathy, of understanding of what exact that job entails. So when we say product support or product life cycle or the maintenance aspect of this, it is not something that you can just read out of a book. Granted, you have to have training, and you absolutely need to be in it, but until you are physically out there and understand what it is, you do not have that level of empathy to be able to fulfill that job.

How important, when it comes to coming up in this trade, uh, is mentorship and learning from others? Good point, Andrew. So this is, this, I would like to spend a lot of time on the mentorship. And so mentoring is critical in aviation maintenance.

This is not... The aircraft is not designed for single point failure. Your career is not single point failure, and the job that you're getting ready to do is not single point failure. You have a lot of pressure, and you have to execute yourself, but mentorship is critical.

You have to not... And, and also, again, you need to keep your inner circle small, of the people that you trust, but you also need to have multiple mentors. It shouldn't, it shouldn't just be one. And so some of the techniques and some of the aspects that I have done throughout my career, even from when I was turning wrenches out in the environments, uh, through maintenance programs into the maintenance engineering aspect, and then ultimately th- in the Boeing company in production environments- Is I would ask, I have three mentors, three that I keep into my inner circle.

I have multiples, uh, and different... It doesn't have to be a higher level. I have a lot of peer mentors as, uh, as well. But I ask the same exact question to all of my mentors, and I listen to what they have to tell me of how they experience in their own perspective.

And at the end of the day, I make my own determination of what, what fits for me. And I also don't tell them that I'm telling them those things. You know, I don't share anybody else's perspective. I make that final call myself, and then I walk the talk.

I go and, and physically get in that environment so that I have, again, now in the leadership role, I ensure that I have performed and have that level of empathy before I can lead that role, that I know what I'm going ready to, getting ready to ask others to do. And so that's very important about mentorship is, one, keeping your inner circle broad, you know, far and wide, but also deep of, of different levels of experiences intentionally so that, one, you don't ever get complacent.

And if you get to a point where you feel like you're the strongest or you're the smartest one, or you've kn- you know the job, you can do it blinded, it's time to grow. It's time to get additional mentors. It's trying to see different perspectives to make sure that you're still on track. And how do you continuously grow if you don't listen to the perspective of others that, that you have already around?

Um, relationships, network across the board. It, it, I'm talking engineers, technical side, uh, our ground support people, managers, non-managers, all of the above should be people you should take into consideration in listening in your careers, especially maintenance. Because we just have to fix. We are fixers.

We are, we are just wired to fix. And, um, we have to work on, on some of our soft skills and the way that we can effectively communicate so that it's not just, um, going in and, and taking care of it and then complaining about it. We are, again, because we are fixers, we are, we, we work with our hands. We're, we're focused on tangible substance and instant gratification and taking care of it and then watching that aircraft.

It's the pride. We own that. That's something that will never go away. But what we need to ensure is that, um, you just, you have to explore, right?

I like the, I want to stay with the mentorship because you said you had a couple of mentors. What has been the toughest part of your journey where a mentor stepped in and got you through whatever you were going through during your career? Oh, okay. So not so much the toughest.

There's, there's things that happen at every level of my career. So this is my 32nd year in aviation industry. I started off in the airlines before, uh, I joined the Boeing company, and so I have what they call a, a non-traditional... I wasn't, I wasn't born in the Boeing company, right?

So I started fixing Boeing product as a m- as a mechanic. So I've had mentors that taught me- Took me under their wing right out of the gate. So one, being a female in a male ... I, I don't like to say a male-dominated, it's just a male populated- Yeah ...

uh- Like most trades. Yes. Yeah. It's, it is what it is.

We all have that same passion, and at some day I can't wait till we have a neutralization where it's just somebody that has the same passion, that loves airplanes and loves to fix it. So, um, but, but back when I started, uh, that was not normal, and it took a lot of courageous men to take me under their wing to teach me on these things. And so it started actually with my father and my uncles. I have an Italian family, and I was out in the garage.

I've ... I come from Michigan, and I'm a first generation American. My family's from Italy. But, uh, so we're all from ...

Michigan is a car family, so all of my uncles have worked on cars, and so I would be in the, in the garage with them, and I, I had a, I had a sheet metal. I had this, the skill just ... It, I just, it just happens, right? Just being out there with my dad and, uh, honestly just helping, help- They helped me mold in a way where I was not afraid to speak up, and that was the first, first experience I had in mentorship of if something is not right, just like, I, I wasn't, um, I wasn't cut out to be doing dishes and, and cooking all the time, and being in the house.

I wanted to be with the whole entire everybody having fun and laughing and, and being out where the, the excitement was. And so I challenged, I challenged things where I would figure out how to still follow the rules, but still, still be able to get out there and enjoy with everybody. And it started the mentorship of my father and my uncles of being strong and saying things in a way that I did not put people in a defensive posture, that they would actually listen to me. That started in, uh, as, uh, how I was grown, how I was, uh ...

Just how I was raised in my family. It's all about respect for people. That started off in the beginning where, uh, I liked doing when I do ... was doing with, with sheet metal.

And, um, my father would have my back, uh, and, and stick up for me whenever it was. And to see somebody, another human being make me feel, give me a p- a platform to be my best self, I have taken that on as that's how I treat all of my employees that, throughout my whole career, not only just my employees, but the people, my peers, the people I've worked with, is that if they are working on something and they have a passion to be their best self, they should not have an impediment in front of them to be able to, to do that.

And sometimes ... So circling back to the mentorship, it started with my family, yes. But throughout my career, I've also had very courageous men. I've had majority of my career, quite frankly, until just recently, uh, in the Boeing company, now that we finally have additional females in the line of work that I do, it's few and far between.

There's just not, it just did not exist. But it took those, the courageous men in the companies throughout To have my back. Uh, I screwed up a whole lot. Fail, fail fast, and I did, but I owned it.

I have this extreme accountability about, "Okay, I definitely messed that up, but how do I fix it?" Or, "Help me." And that's when I would reach out to the mentors. It starts with trust.

It starts with, again, those relationships. It- this does not happen overnight. This takes a lot of years. Keep showing up.

Keep asking the questions. It's not a handout. It's not a privilege. It's, it's absolutely earned, and it's a relationship, so there's some reciprocity there.

You need to make sure that you're providing, and it's a, it's a two-way street, more on the relationship side instead of... So a mentorship is not somebody always just taking care of you. You gotta own it. You still have to walk, you still have to walk the path, and you still have to pave the...

Sometimes you have to pave the path that, that you wanna be on, but that's where you take all the different mentors and you bring them in and you help, you help better yourself so that you can continue to walk on your career and own it yourself. Yeah. Yeah, and it sounds like you started off really early with that foundation of obviously your family, and it, you came from more so it sounds like more blue-collar. Absolutely.

More, more blue-collar. Why aviation? Because somebody who's sitting down who's young, I'm thinking like 17, 18 years old and says, "I am good with my hands. I just don't know what I wanna do," why aviation?

What, what kinda gravitated you to its- Oh ... towards aviation? So for me, it was just, one, I didn't wanna be in automotive. Everybody was in automotive, so I'm, I'm not a big me too fan at all.

Uh, I'm all about who's next, and so it started there. Wasn't, it wasn't, I just didn't wanna work on cars. That's fun. That's a hobby.

But, uh, I used to, we lived close enough to an airport where I was inspired, and I s- I would just see those amazing airplanes fly in the air. And then long time ago, there was that movie Iron Eagle, so yes, a movie did inspire a lot of really cool stuff. But ultimately, it was looking up in the sky and dreaming and thinking, "You know what? I got this ability to, you know, I have this skill that I like.

It's fun." And that's pretty cool, and it w- that's what attracted me. And so now, that, that was me. Now we have even cooler technology.

We have, if you think about it, w- with this mechanic shortage, now is the time for this next generation to really pay attention. So if you think about it, this is the first time in history that we have, we, the mechanic shortage, has ever surpassed the pilot shortage. I wanna stay there for a quick sec. And when you're talking about the shortage, what is, what does the general public not know about that shortage?

What does that look like? This is my favorite topic, sir. So right now, our numbers are, we've projected, the Boeing company actually just produced our, our technician outlook, and we've projected 710,000 technicians are going to be needed in our industry. So if you think about the shortage, you think about the amount of vacations and the amount of flights and the amount of support that we need to be providing these aircraft, and then you think about- If we have a shortage, what do we need to do?

What is it? Is it all about the money? Is it all about... Well, what is...

Do they just not understand? Is it, does everybody just think that everyone is, that a mechanic is out there turning wrenches in the environments? That couldn't be further from the truth. Maintenance has s- such a far and deep reach that it's not just in the environments turning wrenches and turning aircraft.

You have, there's, there's an endless amount of possibilities. Do I think that people should start off in maintenance? Yes. I mean, I'm a little biased of that.

I think everybody should have that ability to turn a wrench at some point in their career that is in the maintenance field, to be able to have that empathy and understanding of the, what the job is going to be. But think about it from a, from a pay standpoint. If you just think about just money, this next generation really is, uh, money-driven, and there's also opportunity all over the place. So it's not just the Boeing company that has a shortage on mechanics.

This is... We have shortage on, in our factory and on our flight lines, yes. But our customers and the industry, all the airlines, are in the same exact boat. And so not only do they have options of locations of where they wanna be in an, in, in the environments if they're out there, that salary is going to start to be equivalent to what pilots make because of the shortage.

Wow. So this is means that we need to start taking action. It's, we're past talking about it and addressing. We need to start, all the industry needs to start embracing, and it starts off with the training of the current product that's out there, right?

So we're gonna, we're gonna be modifying and retrofitting aircraft, so we need to make sure that we have that, uh, that appropriate training that is customized so that they can, they can consume it. So the next generation's not gonna look through PowerPoints or PDFs. That, that doesn't happen anymore. They're not gonna sit in hours and hours and hours in classrooms.

I mean, we need to make sure that we have immersive learnings. We need to also create, from a design perspective, we need to start designing practical technology that's effective use of everybody's time, but also that's designed for this next generation. Everything should be in the digital aspect. We should be embracing AI.

We should absolutely... Now, there will always be human in the loop, so that's just one thing that we need to put, we need to remove that fear out of the gate. We're aviation maintenance. That is an aircraft that is up in the sky at 30,000-plus feet.

Uh, there is a lot happening, and you cannot pull over to the side of the road. There will always be a human in the loop when it comes to aircraft maintenance. Now, should we use AI in, in all of the aspects to support that aircraft? Absolutely.

Absolutely. That's gonna help us increase efficiency. We'll be able to get those aircraft back up in the sky faster. We'll be able to understand when we have degradation in a system, and we can address it.

We can implement predictive maintenance. We can also implement condition-based maintenance. There's all of these things that we can utilize. Again, if you have that maintenance mentality, you have, you start off with your A&P and the tr- the trade skills, you can then take that effective communication and that knowledge and then turn it in and then continuously grow in your career, which again, improves in your ability, a- also your quality of life Yeah, and, and obviously there's stepping stones, and you can keep climbing that ladder.

But I wanna go back to the shortage, what you said about 700,000? 710,000. 710,000 over what span? So that's a great question as well.

So we, we project that over the next 20 years. 20 years, so that's 700 ... That's a lot of, uh, that's a lot of technicians. That's a lot of technicians.

That's a lot of technicians. So walk me through what happens if we do not get the amount, 'cause there's a good percentage that are retiring or getting to that, that age. What happens? So think about it, when you have a delay because they don't have a crew.

We're, we're going to start to see a lot more delays because there's not m- enough mechanics to take care of those aircraft. And you gotta think too, the customers are, they, they have mixed fleets. They, they don't just have one type of a fleet, and so that means one mechanic is gonna have to be trained on multiple port platforms as they go down the line, if they're working the line to get those aircraft up and ready. Or in, in the event that you have, you have a discrepancy and you have to pull that aircraft off and swap it out, you have to be able to, what we call turn and burn those aircraft, but you also have to be, have those understanding and that, the credentials, the trainings to be able to do that.

And if you don't even have enough human beings, then you're gonna worry about burnout. You also have to think about that, the human factors aspect of, of this. And so ultimately there's going to not be enough mechanics to have enough flights, and so the airlines are, uh, from a business perspective, they're, they're not gonna be able to generate revenue because they're not gonna be able to provide these flights. We don't have enough maintenance to fix the aircraft.

A- or they need to start investing in purchasing newer aircraft that are not going to have that reliability factor on, on the breakage. Again, that all is the business aspect of it. So from an industry perspective right now, we need to see what the market is and address the level of what we call the LOV, so the limit of validity. Where, what is the age of the aircraft?

What is the average age of a airplane today, roughly, that's out there? Well, so, so that's gonna be different from every single airline. Ev- every airline will have different metrics. But it could be, like, 10, 20 years?

Yes, absolutely. And you think about it, it's not only just the age of that aircraft, it's, because you can have a brand-new aircraft, but that aircraft was designed a long time ago. And so things, uh, from a supply chain perspective, things from a technology, that it's like, that's not fun to be working on these as the next, you know, old school. It's, that's not fun.

That's not attracting the next generation of talent. And so this is where we need to bring in this, that practical technology. You know, we have things from sensors, we have things from, uh, what we talked already about, AHM and predictive maintenance that we implement that starts to bring things to fun. We also have maintenance technologies that you use from the digital aspect, in the videos, and I love it that- Quite a few of the airlines that are here today representing, they're, they're, they're embracing the social media platform, or they're doing little snips and videos, see like, "Oh, that is pretty cool."

Or they show them how to change oil. We're always gonna be changing oil. We're always going to be... There's gonna be servicing.

There, there, there are certain things that we will not ever not do, uh, that's just normal. Uh, however, it's the way we go about it in doing it, and that's where we need to start, again, embracing that next generation, say, "What is cool? What do you think?" And just asking them, "What is cool to you when we make these videos?"

Or, "What is it that we can do?" And then we can take that back and redesign things. We're gonna modify it. Things are gonna break, or how do we upgrade that aircraft so that we do not have this, this mechanic shortage?

But we also need to circle back to the schools, and we need to understand that there's some, uh, federal aviation regulations that we have to abide by for an airframe and powerplant certification. Some of those things on there, we're working with the FAA to ensure that we're teaching the students things that are tangible, that, that can actually be used so that they're effective using their time and the skills to get them ex, you know, accelerated and out into the industry. So dope and fabric, uh, still in an airframe and powerplant certification, we should probably look at that.

What's the percentage of that's actually being consumed and utilized in the industry versus maybe changing up those curriculums and thinking what we can do from a software perspective, or what can we do on avionics, composites, all next generation of types of materials and, and components that we utilize in, in our aircraft. Yeah, I'm thinking about what you're saying about the span of the average of, you know, an, an airplane if it's, you know, 20-plus years. It's like, 'cause we talked, you talked about coming up in cars.

Like, it's like working on an old muscle car versus working on a Tesla. Like- Yes ... that's two different platforms. Correct.

Right? It's a car. It's, you know, it's does the same thing, but at, in different ways. It's like working on a, an advanced, you know, airplane that just came out versus one that's kinda been out, you know, 20-plus years.

But you would have to know the span, like, to work on the old stuff and work on the new stuff. Absolutely. And, and again, it's not the, it's not the age of the aircraft, it's the age of the design of the aircraft. That's what people don't seem to think about, 'cause we, we, we pull brand-new aircraft off the line every day.

It's, we're delivering aircraft rapidly, and it's, it goes back to the design and then, and then again, the how we're utilizing that practical technology. Yeah. I wanna shift over to, you talked about obviously walking in those shoes as an aircraft maintenance mechanic, but you've, o- over your career, you've gone into different roles. For somebody who's saying, "What's, what's next?"

Like, "Okay, I'm gonna start off, you know, in this field," what is the possibility? Where can you get to, and what has it been like in your career? So sky is the limit, uh- Literally ... in maintenance.

It liter- literally. I like that. Honestly, it is something that wherever you would like, you don't even have to have that defined because honestly, I have never thought, uh- This particular role, uh, for, that I am currently in as a functional chief, did I ever foresee that that was my goal? No.

I didn't even know it existed until I started moving up. But most importantly, forget about the ranks and the titles, it's about the ability to influence of what you're doing and making an impact into the industry. And so it's really important for these next generation that's coming in, they need to work on their soft skills. They need to understand how to effectively communicate the, when the pr- or when and what the problem is.

So again, it goes back to not putting people in a defensive posture so they'll just listen to you. So it's not just about your credentials. People are coming into the industry with, with all these high level of credentials, but they need to work on their credibility so their credibility and their credentials are equal, and then also creating those environments around theirselves so that their voice, they have a seat at the table now. We've, it's taken a long time to get maintenance at the table.

We need to continue to earn that, not only just their voice, but we need to turn that they need to have the authority at the table. It's not just coming in after the fact. It cannot be an afterthought. It needs to be at the forefront in the design.

But that means that we need to have continued people that know how to effectively communicate as to why they are there, so they continue to get invited back. So that's very important is the communication skills of being able to talk not only to leadership, but talk to engineers who are designing these things, 'cause it is their job. How do we make sure that we're taking the voice of the mechanic and influencing that into the design from the get-go? And now granted, new aircraft versus modification and retrofit, we will continue to modify and retrofit forever.

We will continue that. Uh, we love to redesign. That's actually, it's a service, you know, a generation of, of services. But that's not the most important part.

It's not how to fix what was already out there, but what are we gonna do for the, those next aircraft so that we don't have to continue. We have to think outside the box of if we already have a mechanic shortage, what can we do that we can help accelerate and have less maintenance? And that's where we start thinking about how do we design the maintenance, uh, program and the schedule maintenance program. How do we go about that so that's condition-based?

Or if we talk, start talking about MSG4, that's the, uh, engineering analysis that we have to do to create the schedule maintenance program that the mechanics then go execute to. So how do we make sure that we have their voices on the lessons learned that they're doing day in and day out into those requirements before that aircraft is solidified and then, and then created? I just wanna touch on the, the younger generation, um, and about the soft skills. The soft skills what you were talking about, about communication, showing up on time, showing up early.

Um, the younger generation, uh, I feel we have to adapt to how they work and their, their work ethic. How is Boeing, um, handling trying to reach that younger generation? What are they, what are they doing today? Oh, it's fantastic.

So this is our culture change and our, our Boeing behaviors of what we... We're very, very much embracing. Uh, we, we assign mentors, but we also, we have these rotations and we- We help them grow, but we give them exposure and that visibility to the different levels based on what they are. So the managers that they work for are - We, we have constant performance conversations of, "Hey, what is your passion?

Where do you want to go?" And then we implement these programs. So on rotation programs, we have LX, so Leadership Next, where we help them go through different programs, and we very much spend a significant amount of time helping, uh, to develop them. And again, when I talked about the scof- soft skills and the communication aspect, it's, it's not just writing an email.

It's getting off, out away from your desk, going out to the floor, going and talking to the mechanic, what we call Gemba walks. We, we actually hold... If there's a, if there's something happening in the factory, we, we meet out at the factory at the, at there with the mechanics, um, on the aircraft. And we've started implementing real-world face-to-face FaceTime.

We fully embrace and encourage the hallway conversations, the relationships, the network building, and building trust. Um, so part of my role as the functional chief is to, before we can have, uh, outward customer facing and building trust in the industry and working with our customers and, and our product, most importantly, we have to make sure that we're taking care of our Boeing family. And so part of my job as the functional chief is to make sure that they have the appropriate training available, that they have the appropriate people surrounding, surrounding them.

I mean, we're Boeing. We get to... If a job is, you're just not feeling it, you're not, you're not providing, you're not getting effective use out of it, it's not, you're not feeling value add, that's where, you know, we do have some time limits that we ask the team members to stay in a role, as we, we target 18 months. But then you find, you find your next role, and we help you do that.

We help you be your best self, and we also provide the training and the guidance and then w-whatever path. So we, we like to focus on the technical competence. So right now, Boeing Company is significantly focusing on technical fellowship. So we have engineers.

We're an engineering company. Uh, we have a lot of engineers. However, what we're doing, again, because of this not only just mechanic shortage, but across the board, the technical competence. So we have technical fellowship, and we start them off as subject matter experts, and then we have technical lead engineers, but then we go into the fellows aspect, where we have associate tech fellows, technical fellows, senior tech fellows, which is in an executive rank, which do- don't have to manage people.

And then we go up through principal tech fellows to distinguished. So you can make yourself, um, from a mechanic all the way up to a vice president in the technical fellowship realm with training, with support, and with different areas, uh, of subject matter expertise in Boeing. That's the path. Correct.

That's the path. That's- And that's, that's what I was... That's what I wanted to get to, that it's not just, you know, st-starting and fixing airpl- like, you work your way up. You sure can.

You work your way up, which is... And, and you've done that. I mean, you're- I have ... you know.

For a piece of advice that you can give the younger generation before we leave the studio, what can you give them? What can you tell them? I would say immediately remove that fear of failure. It is okay to start to figure things out and to ask questions Do not be afraid to ask questions.

If you don't have that answer, it's okay. Ask somebody. Bring it, bring things together and use your network. Use your mentors.

Ask that question, but remove that fear of, of the judgment. There's no judgment. W- nobody is expecting everybody to know every answer. That's, that's impossible, and right out of the gate, don't even have that.

Don't allow free rent in your head space for that, period. That is something that it is, it is expected to ask questions. If you don't ask questions, something is wrong, and that's the environment that we create in the Boeing company to making sure that everybody feels embraced and has that, that environment where they can do that. It's, it's expectations.

It's no longer... But that's something for this next generation to come out, and that's my piece of advice is I see a lot of the interns coming in, and they're terrified of making a mistake when they go up and do a presentation or they're, when they're doing all the homework. They don't ask questions. They just spend hours and hours and hours doing all the research and, and they're doing great work, but where they immediately fail right out of the gate is not asking the questions because they didn't have the answer and they were afraid to fail, and they should've just asked the question, and they would've been that much better.

And, uh, and, you know, that's what I'm seeing as we come in, even from the, the maintenance side, uh, on the technical aspect, is because they're, they've, they're so strong at, "I can figure it out." You just wasted a lot of time trying to figure it out when you could've just asked somebody that already had that level of experience, and then you could've had that answer, and you can went to go solve another challenge. I love that advice for the younger generation. Um, if people wanna find out more about Boeing and they wanna go down th- that path, social media, website, where do they go?

All of the above. So, and LinkedIn is a big, a big ... We're, we're, we're coming out strong on LinkedIn. Um, here at the show, we have the career runway path here, and then we also have our global talent booth that we have, uh, multiple jobs posting.

Uh, we're growing s- significantly out in South Carolina. We have multiple, uh, all over the location, any of the mechanics and maintenance we have right here. We're, we're scheduling interviews, and we'll have, uh, opportunities for the mechanics to come and join Team Boeing. Ultimately, uh, careers@boeing.

com on the websites, but LinkedIn, uh, we're, we're dabbling in, in Instagram. Uh, same thing. We're embracing the social media as- aspect. Jennifer, it's been a super blast having you on the show.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to The Lost Art of the Skilled Trades.

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