Avionics News December 2015 - 34

- I N T E R V I E W

B Y

P A T R I C I A

L U E B K E

A
» » »

Chris Haskell of Apex Aviation

Tell me about your
background.
I wasn't the best student. I was
smart, but didn't like doing homework. School was boring for me, as I
learned things quickly. I always had a
short attention span and was hyperactive. When I was 18, I didn't have the
grades to go to college, so I joined
the Navy. That's where I learned electronics. I wanted to do crypto, learn
languages, and thought that would be
interesting. But with the scores on my
test, the Navy said I would be best at
electronics.

Did you initially enjoy
learning electronics?
ex Aviation, and his
Chris Haskell of Ap

wife, Reina

L

ocated at Henderson Executive Airport near Las Vegas,
Apex Aviation is committed
to quality aviation services and
turbine engine maintenance, repair
and overhaul. Apex also repairs and
services piston engines, including
annual inspections and overhauls.
In addition, Apex performs rotorcraft inspections, modifications and
avionics services, as well as UAV
maintenance.
Recently, Avionics News spoke
with Chris Haskell to learn more
about his work and his life outside
the office.
34

avionics news

*

december

2015

With...

Yes, I found it was great. It is
fast-paced; you use your mind
and I got to see the world. I was
in Operation Enduring Freedom
in 2002 on the USS John F.
Kennedy, based in the Indian
Ocean. My second cruise was for
Operation Iraqi Freedom on the
USS George Washington in the
Persian Gulf. I was an avionics
tech, working on F-14 Tomcats.
I was in the Navy for four years.

And then?
I got out of the Navy. The F-14 is
a hard aircraft to work on because
it's older technology, and you had to
learn to troubleshoot on the flight
deck. It was not as easy as working

on the newer aircraft, and it left
a bad taste in my mouth for aviation because I thought all aircraft
were as frustrating as the Tomcat.
That left me out of aviation for a
while, and I did construction work.
When the home mortgage crisis
struck in 2007, work started to get
slow in construction. So I moved to
Colorado where my mom and sister
live, and I joined West Star Aviation
as an avionics tech. I worked there
for two years and then for Omega
Avionics, a smaller shop on the field
doing installations. That little shop
did everything, and I liked the variety of different aircraft.
Things started getting slow in
the winter of 2009 to 2010. I asked
my wife if she wanted to move
to Denver or Las Vegas. She was
done with the snow, so I applied
for work in Las Vegas. I was hired
by Sunrise Mountain Avionics in
North Las Vegas as an avionics
tech, and things started to get slow
there, too. I was down to a 32-hour
workweek and the other tech had
a family, so I got laid off. But it was
fortuitous.
As much as I loved my boss
at Sunrise Mountain, I got a job
with Kings Avionics in Henderson,
Nevada, with Steve Hayden. He is
a great guy, a patient trainer, and
he put me in the facility manager
position early. He threw me in the
deep end of the pool, made me
the manager, and I had to learn
quickly how to do quotes, how to
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News December 2015
