This is a story about the wisdom of greening up the grass in your own backyard, rather than gazing over the fence at your neighbor’s lawn. If that sounds cryptic, please read on.
My tale begins in 2019, with an Atlanta-based pilot who was lured into leaving his coveted, top-tier corporate aviation job to fly for a major airline. In that pre-Covid era, his corporate flight department had been very busy and his job demanding. He was struggling with the fact that he had a wife and three-year-old at home, whom he felt he wasn’t seeing often enough.
Sheryl Barden, CAM, is CEO of Aviation Personnel International, the longest-running recruiting and HR consulting firm dedicated to business aviation. A recognized thought leader on workforce and leadership issues, she is an NBAA CAM Fellow, past member of NBAA’s board of directors and advisory council, and recipient of NBAA’s John P. “Jack” Doswell Award for lifetime achievement and service to business aviation.
