About Steve
My aviation career started when I was 12 years old, loading and fuelling floatplanes at a fly-in fishing resort in Northwestern Ontario. What began as a summer job around airplanes turned into a career that's now spanned more than 45 years — from hands-on aircraft maintenance to senior operational and executive leadership.
Today, I'm Co-Owner, Executive Vice President & COO and Director of Maintenance at Levaero Aviation in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Over the past three decades I've helped build what began as a small aviation operation into a Canadian organization of nearly 100 people, with responsibilities spanning aircraft maintenance, technical and product support, parts, regulatory compliance, aircraft transactions and business operations.
Aviation is only part of what interests me. I've always liked figuring out how things work, finding better ways of doing things, and building practical solutions when the existing ones don't quite fit. That has increasingly pulled me into software, automation, data, web and mobile applications, and the occasional project that starts with “there has to be a better way to do this.”
My technical roots have never gone very far away. I'm a Transport Canada licensed M1/M2/Structures Aircraft Maintenance Engineer and a Minister's Delegate – Maintenance (MD-M), and I continue to work directly with aircraft owners, manufacturers, regulators and technical teams on everything from airworthiness and certification to difficult maintenance and operational problems.
Through Levaero, I've been involved in supporting Canada's Pilatus PC-12 and PC-24 fleet, aircraft importation and export, product support, maintenance operations, aircraft transactions and the development of long-term relationships with customers and OEM partners.
Some of my technology projects solve real business and aviation problems. Others exist simply because I wanted to see if I could build them.
I'm a lifelong Northwestern Ontarian and Thunder Bay is home. Away from aviation and technology, I spent 17 years with Neebing Emergency Services, retiring as a Captain, and I remain involved with aviation education through Confederation College's Aircraft Maintenance advisory committee.
This site is a place for the aviation, technology, projects and other things that keep me interested — including, occasionally, making things more complicated than necessary. Why, you ask? Because its fun!