CONVERSATION TRANSCRIPT (auto generated)

Shane Hewitt (00:01.406)

Kathy Press is here and Kathy is here because she’s cool. That’s it. She’s cool. Let me explain how I met Kathy Press. I went out to the BC Aviation Council’s conference in Kamloops and I asked around, I said, who do I need to meet? There was a few names that are tossed about. I met a lot of really great people. There was one recurring name that kept coming up, kept coming up, kept coming up and that’s

Catherine press. Kathy is a business owner. She’s also a pilot. She’s in Abbotsford. And Chinook is the name of the helicopter. it like school flight, not just helicopters like it’s you guys just love being in the air basically, right?

Cathy Press (00:47.606)

Yeah, I love teaching people and so the business is sort of built out of I guess some of my desires and what I like about aviation so we do primarily flight training.

Shane Hewitt (00:57.533)

Okay, flight training, there it is. And how is it that everybody likes you and respects you so much? Could you teach all of us this? Because everybody says, talk to Kathy, she knows that she loves it. She lives it. She’s the best. The one person you need to talk to is Kathy press. So I don’t know who or who you paid for this reputation, Kathy, but it worked.

Cathy Press (01:21.068)

Well, I don’t know either, actually. I enjoy what I do and I guess that I like to help out. I like to be involved in things. I guess that there’s nothing that is below me to get involved with. And so I enjoy the business from all ends.

Shane Hewitt (01:38.526)

very good. Okay, you said you like to teach let’s start with learning how to fly. Learning how to fly is an amazing process. It can be terrifying. It can be exhilarating. It can be rewarding. All of these bits and pieces come together when you learn to fly a helicopter and airplane. What from your look on the west coast is the status of pilots in this country? opportunities, love affair. I understand that we’re looking pretty good. What do you see is going on?

Cathy Press (01:42.989)

Yes.

Cathy Press (02:07.832)

Well, I guess that for the last few years we’ve had a number of people that have been retiring in both the airplane and the helicopter sector and it has left a real void of skilled labor in aviation across the board and so to catch up on that there’s been a lot of hiring and not only that there’s a lot of growth within the people that are in the business for them to increase their skills.

There’s been opportunity and I guess that’s been part of, I’ve been involved in that and I’ve been enjoying that opportunity.

Shane Hewitt (02:43.945)

Let’s get into the nuts and bolts of it. I suppose. How long does it take for you to legally fly an airplane?

Cathy Press (02:51.916)

All right, let’s see, legally fly an airplane? It is based on your skill. I used to send people solo quite a bit when they had about eight hours. Now the traffic conditions and what have you have really gotten a lot busier. So a lot of people tend to go solo closer to 20 hours now in an airplane. And same for the helicopter, similar sort of time, except a helicopter is about 100 hours and it takes about four months to do the training where an airplane usually for a commercial license is about a year to do the training.

Shane Hewitt (03:21.929)

Is it fair to ask you what your favorite is? I feel like there are two different children there and I’m asking the forbidden question.

Cathy Press (03:29.742)

That may be true. But what I tell people is if I’m going to New York, I’d rather be on an airplane. They go faster, higher. if I’m going up to the top of a mountain to have a picnic, I’d rather be in a helicopter. So it’s job specific. And both of them have their strengths and weaknesses.

Shane Hewitt (03:31.12)

Haha

Shane Hewitt (03:48.969)

Is there a favorite helicopter that you have?

Cathy Press (03:50.895)

I like ones with lots of performance and I like a few. I mean there’s a few that I like but we’ve just bought a Bell 505 which is a brand new helicopter for us and we’re actually a dealer for Bell Helicopter that it’s based, it’s actually made in Canada. So I really am enjoying that. We’re going up to the mountains and there’s nothing better than having a being on the top of a mountain and having the

Shane Hewitt (04:14.226)

Very good.

Cathy Press (04:20.392)

snow all poof up when you land and you look over the edge and you can see about 2,000 feet down between your toes to a river below. It’s a great experience.

Shane Hewitt (04:27.479)

that’s, this is why helicopters are weird. Just so you know, the Bell 505 bit of a rocket ship actually, like it’s, it’s quite the machine. And I just recently drove by a Mirabelle I drove by that Bell plant there last week, too. And they’ve got the helicopter up on the rock in the front and kind of cool to see that you know, such a Canadian company getting supported by their okay airplanes then do you have a favorite airplane?

Cathy Press (04:31.598)

Ha

Cathy Press (04:52.59)

Lately I’ve been flying a Cessna Citation, so I guess that’s probably my favorite airplane this week.

Shane Hewitt (04:59.709)

Terrible airplane to spend time in. my god.

Cathy Press (05:01.326)

You

Well, it’s fun that you can go, you know, 40,000 feet and you can fly about four hours away. So I’m enjoying the, I know that in the world of jets, they’re called like a slow-tation instead of a citation, but as a jet aircraft, I’m having a lot of fun flying it.

Shane Hewitt (05:22.406)

Very good. How long, when’d you start flying and why’d you start flying?

Cathy Press (05:26.018)

I started flying when I was about 13 years old and I used to hang out at the airport with my dad as he would polish his airplane, he had a float plane. And so on my 16th birthday I went solo and on my 17th I achieved both the airplane and helicopter licenses. So started, yeah.

Shane Hewitt (05:42.769)

pressure and your whole career has been in aircraft. Yeah.

Cathy Press (05:46.027)

It has, yes. Yes, I sort of morphed, I thought I was going to fly airplanes. I worked toward that. I had about 3,000 hours when I was about 23 years old. I was looking down the path of what an airline pilot’s job would be. And quite honestly, I think I kind of knew what that would look like and what I would make and where I would live and how that would look to me. And I decided to make it completely unknown. So I jumped more to the helicopter side. I got my instructor rating at about 97.

And I wasn’t aware at the time, but the person shook my hand and he said, this is, you’re the first female flight instructor on the helicopter in Canada. So I thought, well, that’s kind of interesting. And then I started instructing on the helicopter and I’ve been more or less morphing through that type of phase of my life. And then the company at one time had about five employees and it has about 50.

So my life has been changing as I’ve had different growth experiences with the company.

Shane Hewitt (06:46.289)

Tell me about women in aviation. I know that you are just a leader in aviation yourself, but if that’s the look then and that’s the check mark that you got to add to your career of being the first with the instructor rating, more and more females are getting plugged into aviation. It’s becoming an industry that welcomes everybody more and more and more, perhaps maybe an old boys club back way back in the day. Not the case today. Tell me about the state of things when it comes to that balance.

and diversity inside aviation.

Cathy Press (07:19.278)

Well, it’s obviously getting more and more balanced, although the numbers are still lagging. Here’s an interesting fun fact. think India is the leading with most women that are flying on the fixed-wing side with about 9 % and Canada on the helicopter side. I still don’t think we’ve got above about 3 % of women actually on the helicopter side. So it’s still lagging. It’s definitely, there’s definitely a lot more cross-section of women than there was.

Shane Hewitt (07:41.349)

Hmm.

Cathy Press (07:49.167)

30 years ago. However, the interesting thing is when I first got my instructor rating and in 97, nobody was that interested that there was very few women. It actually became of interest in about 2015. And I think part of it was we’re driving people toward more women toward aviation, partly because we have shortages and we need women. We need to be at parity.

not just to be progressive, but also to have the numbers that we need moving forward in the next 25 years.

Shane Hewitt (08:24.804)

What’s the invitation and Kathy for anybody who’s thought about it? I think that people tend to assume that as you described it as being a teenager, it’s a young person’s game. And there is obviously things that benefit young people for sure for time. But what’s the invite for anybody who’s interested because being a pilot is not the only angle.

Cathy Press (08:43.362)

totally. I actually just had a woman talk to me today on the telephone for her 16-year-old daughter. And I said, for an example, if she was to do her private fixed-wing license, it would be one stepping stone that she could do. But as far as opportunity, there’s aircraft maintenance engineers. There’s air traffic controllers. These are very short, short areas. I would actually say aircraft maintenance engineers are probably the shortest that we have right now.

in our industry today. When you get into aviation, this is the part that I really like. You continue to have challenges and you continue to have areas that you didn’t realize that were even there. And some people will say, how about drones? Our world will change. Well, definitely our world will change. However, if you’re in the business and you understand how it works and you’re moving forward in it, you’ll be able to take opportunities as they come up because you have the knowledge.

to move them forward.

Shane Hewitt (09:44.858)

They call you a pioneer in this, by the way, when you search it. Is that what it is? Trailblazer? That’s not getting older, is it? I don’t think so. Trailblazer is another word that they throw at you at this. I feel like I understand why people say talk to Kathy. It’s contagious. Your love affair for speaking about this and flying is contagious. Now, Chinook is its own business successful. It’s doing all the things.

Cathy Press (09:48.802)

That’s also another word for getting older. Anyway.

Shane Hewitt (10:15.321)

But love for the aviation industry, you and I met in that conversation about innovation and everything going on at that conference. Tell me about aviation generally and the love for it. Why does it take people to stand up to make sure it has as bright of a future as it could?

Cathy Press (10:32.91)

Well, I really believe that aviation, and for that matter, even the larger transportation, is actually important to our country and for our growth. I think that if you transport people and goods from one place to another, and you have opportunity to do that, it actually increases economic growth. And for this reason, we need to look at ways to enhance getting people and products from one area to another.

cost-effectively in our country. So to do that, we have to do that safely. And so obviously our government is there to make sure that we regulate safety, but it’s also needs to look at the regulations and make sure that everything is effective. And we can be cost-effective too, because so much of what we do is on the world market. So much of what we do becomes more than just Canada in this business.

Shane Hewitt (11:30.223)

Hmm. What do we need to get? What do we need to make better? I was going to say this what I was going to ask what came to my mind is what do need to fix? So it implies that things are broken. I don’t want to speak to things that are broken. You can if you like, what do we what do we need to do to really break down our barriers and really just make aviation better? I agree with you that we’re talking about GDP in Canada and our general productivity and our assets and still in Canada people is such a big asset.

How do we make it all better then?

Cathy Press (12:02.284)

Well, I guess that that’s a big question, isn’t it? It is a big question. I think obviously it’s like production of people. People are what’s probably going to always make the decision. I always feel that whatever the government’s decisions are is generally led by the people or should be. And I guess for that, the government needs to listen to what the people have to say. However, sometimes we’ve had a lot of

Shane Hewitt (12:05.581)

It is a big question.

Cathy Press (12:32.206)

social media, led by social media, we do have to make sure that the decisions that are made at the table are with the people in the industry themselves that are making those decisions. So I guess that’s important and I think productivity of the people within our country is important.

Shane Hewitt (12:48.012)

Does it take too long? always been curious and in our world of radio things, it takes a long time to get things changed or done. Some of the rules are old and antiquated. That’s just my personal look on that. But how does aviation work? Does it work in a way that it gets things done in a timely way or is it similar?

Cathy Press (13:07.662)

Generally, there’s good and bad and slow. One of the things I was over in China, actually got my Chinese license about 10 years ago, I remember talking to someone about how they get things done very quickly. And the conversation was actually a lot of people said, you’re very slow at what you do and where you come from. And I said, well, the thing is slow can be great for business. Actually, slow gives…

Stability, slow is actually, sometimes we’ve actually moved too fast in some of the decisions that have been done fairly randomly because we do have to foster business. On the other hand, yes, sometimes we move too slowly. So it’s a two-edged sword, and I guess it’s a complicated question. I wish I actually had a larger view of how these things worked because I realize that when…

a decision is made over here, affects something else there. And you do have to be careful with that. in answer to your question, some things could move faster, and yet it’s important to be slow for stability.

Shane Hewitt (14:12.609)

that look outside in on Canada and aviation, how do we rank up around the rest of world? Because you said the slow part. So that makes me curious about, I feel curious that, okay, well, how do other countries look at Canada then? We’ve heard a little bit more lately about pilots and different things. How does the world look at Canada’s aviation? Are we leaders in aviation around the world?

Cathy Press (14:35.106)

We have always been leaders. We have absolutely been leaders in this space and I have been so proud to travel the world and be Canadian and be part of that. We do run the risk of not being great as we have more and more, as the skill shortage has reduced the number of people we have and as we move forward, it’s very important how we foster the skills in our country.

to actually be and continue to be great at what we do. That’s really important to support those people.

Shane Hewitt (15:09.843)

one of the things that I learned when my son was doing his license, and it seemed different than when I did mine. Now I didn’t finish mine, just to be clear. But is that the instructor turnover, right? So once you started to get the hours, I know a friend of mine who has a flight school in Calgary had said, you know, if I can keep an instructor for a year, that’s a real bonus. Because the appetite to gobble them up into the system and get them flying, you know, properly employed versus as a flight instructor, that feeder tube is pretty tight and keep in

instructors teaching was also incredibly valuable. Do you find that’s the case? And is that kind of what you’re talking about when it speaking about, you know, bodies and people in the system?

Cathy Press (15:49.507)

Well, guess part of, there’s a difference between the airplane and the helicopter. The airplane has traditionally followed a model that we have people that teach before they go to become an airline pilot and a lot of it’s based on the pay actually. On the helicopter market, it’s actually not like that so much. The helicopter market people will often go to the industry, fly helicopters, and then they’ll return to aviation or to being an instructor and so…

the challenge with the helicopter market, think there’s about 165 flight instructors in all of Canada, which is given as a boutique model to actually be able to run as one of the top in the world at what we do. That has generated that. And I guess that when I’m referring, we don’t want to lose that, that’s the part that we need to make sure that we always have that experience based to, so we do represent Canada at an international level, at a high level.

Shane Hewitt (16:45.804)

Kathy Press runs a flight school. And when you see young faces come in, and I say young as in new to it, and you see their faces light up when they see the machines in the hanger. And then you also get to see those faces when they leave with a piece of paper in their hand. What’s that like as a flight school owner?

Cathy Press (17:04.258)

That’s reason I do this. This is amazing. The best part is when you talk to someone and they say, is what I really want to do and I don’t know if I should do it. I don’t know where I will go. And when somebody has success and they go the direction they want, they get ahold of you later a few years down the road and they say, this was amazing and this is what I wanted to be a part of. That’s actually why you do that. That is actually teaching. That’s what we’re here for.

Shane Hewitt (17:34.079)

they get out of the machine on their first after their first solo. That must be amazing that to see their face like I did it I’m here still walking. What does that feel like?

Cathy Press (17:45.806)

Oh, it’s great to send people solo every now and then as an instructor too. It’s stressful as well. I do think that teaching is a little bit of having, you become a little bit of a psychologist besides a teacher. You sort of have to sort of read people’s face and how they’re going to do. But people do, obviously, first solo is an incredible experience. People feel really proud of themselves. I remember my first solo, I looked

downwind when I realized that someone wasn’t next to me and I saw there was no shape and I thought, I wish I’d at least brought like a big teddy bear to sit beside me so I had a shape beside me. So your mind, you have a lot of different thoughts that go through your head at the time. But flight test is the other type. As a flight test examiner, I’ve had people hug me, kiss me, kiss the ground, show all forms of emotion. Sometimes when they’ve passed, they’ve just…

cried on the spot with that too.

Shane Hewitt (18:44.363)

feel like that’s what I would do. I’d probably cry a little bit. It’s a beautiful thing, Kathy. And please let me acknowledge that. I’m not kidding when I say that every single person I spoke to suggested that I should spend time with you. And that was it. I said, Who do I Who do I talk to about somebody who loves it? And they all said, You need to talk to Kathy press over and over and over again. So please allow me to be that mirror that reflects that back to you of your work and the way that

people very much value what you have to say, what you stand up for, and what you bring every day to this community. I think it’s really cool.

Cathy Press (19:21.582)

Well, I truly appreciate that. Honestly, that makes me feel very good. I appreciate it very much. I think that I entered this business because I saw that there was challenges. I actually wasn’t the kid that looked up in the sky and went, oh man, I want to be a pilot. I was the kid that went, oh, know, it’s great. It was OK. But the first time I got in an airplane and then I realized I could put it right at a specific spot.

right where I wanted it had and it was challenging and that challenge has never died to this day. There’s always challenges to be had and you can always do better and you can it’s like a personal challenge. So that’s what I love about the business.

Shane Hewitt (20:03.457)

Kathy Press, Chinook, Flight School, Aviation, all the things out in Abbotsford. Thank you very much for spending this time with

Cathy Press (20:13.177)

Thank you. Thank you, Shane. was fantastic to be here today. Thank you.