"I Never Violate the Regulations"

The D.O.M. magazine staff was in San Diego last week attending NBAA’s Maintenance Management Conference (MMC). The theme of this year’s conferencewas “Building a Community of Leaders.”

If you weren’t at the conference,you missed some great presentations. One of the talks that I got a lot from was“The Global War on Error” by Dr. Tony Kern. Dr. Kern talked about the need fortrue professionalism in the aviation maintenance industry.

During his talk, Dr. Kern broughtup the example of a mechanic who feels he is a professional. “I’m a professional because I never violate the regulations,” this mechanic might say.But Dr. Kern pointed out that this mechanic might as well be saying, “I only do the minimum necessary to meet the regulations.”

The FARs are the minimum standardestablished by the FAA. But just because the FAA sets the bar low doesn’t meanwe should settle for just hopping over the bar. We can set our standards much higher.

Greg Reigel, Legal Cornercolumnist for D.O.M., shed light onthis subject a few weeks ago at the Minnesota IA seminar. Reigel is an aviation defense attorney in Minnesota. He told attendees that if a mechanic chooses tojust follow the FARs, that would protect him or her from FAA enforcementaction. But meeting that minimum standard would not hold up when faced with a civil lawsuit.

What do you think is the measure of a true professional in our industry?

Thanks for reading!

Joe