NEW ROUTE – Victoria International Airport (YYJ) departing from Friday Harbor Airport and Boeing Field
Specializing in de Havilland Otter Annuals, Jason Wills has been part of the Kenmore Air family for 17 years.
Kenmore’s changed a lot since Jason Wills first started fueling planes and washing windows on the dock 17 years ago — not just the landscape, but also the fleet. And yet, some things are just as true today as they were when he first joined the Kenmore Air family as a young college student.
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Flying wasn’t always the plan. Initially, it was a means to an end. Ava Karr wanted a job where she could travel. A job that allowed her to take adventures.
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Twenty-four-year-old Maddie Kutzera is a certified A&P mechanic at Kenmore Air, specializing in customer maintenance. She has a quick (yet quiet) wit, stunning smile, and an eye for detail. She’s also an advocate of achieving goals and dreams, through relentless hard work and tenacity. Which is a good — because women make up just 2.62 percent of the nation’s aircraft mechanics. And Maddie has big dreams.
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Husband-wife duo — Kenmore aIR Captain Brian Flegel and Line Crew Lead Jaazia C Moran Flegel — are passionate adventures. As a pair, they have trained and performed as both trapeze and acrobatic artists. They’ve spent a summer commercial fishing in Alaska and four summers woodland firefighting.
It was there, creating firebreaks and protecting the forest, that Brian’s passion for seaplanes was ignited. He learned to fly at Walla Walla University, but it was on an uphill firebreak that his own personal spark was ignited. During breaks, the couple watched as firebombers (seaplanes equipped to dump water) swooped just above the flames and released their loads.
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Chief Pilot Jay Todhunter set out to fly for Kenmore Air in 2013. But the path to his stripes wasn’t direct.
Like many of Kenmore Air’s flight crew, Jay started on the dock, splashing planes and washing windows. The job let him get his foot in the door. It also gave him access to Kenmore Air’s flight instruction department, where he earned his seaplane rating.
Jay had gotten his pilot’s license while earning his Bachelor of Science in Flight Technology at Central Washington University.
3 Generations of Mr. Munro’s Descendants (and Counting)
AT THE NORTH END OF Lake Washington, tucked beside the mouth of the Sammamish River, sits a humble airport. It has sat there ever since Bob Munro founded Kenmore Air in 1946 with two high school friends.
What started out as a one hangar, single seaplane company has grown into a thriving multi-faceted business. Today — 75 years later — picnic tables serve as departure “gates”; employees park among company aircraft, and, Munro’s descendants have been raised — quite literally. The original family home still stands at the westernmost edge of the five-acre campus where Munro and his wife Ruth raised their three children, Leslie Banks, Gregg Munro and Margie Munro.
Flying wasn’t the original plan for Christina Rzeplinski. But after taking a private jet to tour colleges on the East Coast, the trajectory of her life was forever changed. Christina wanted to be a pilot.
“I was really lucky. A girlfriend from high school took me with her to tour colleges. We flew on a private jet to New York, Boston and Connecticut,” Christina said. “Most people get on a private jet and think, ‘I wish I could always fly on a private jet.’ I got on and said, ‘I want to fly this thing.’”
Raised in the airline industry, Caitlin Hunter’s no stranger to helping make a passenger’s travel day fly by smoothly. She joined her mom at SkyWest Airlines in 2005, doing anything and everything that was needed.
“You name it, I’ve done it. Working the ticket counter. Loading bags. Pushing the airplane out. Being a gate agent. I’ve done everything but fly the airplane,” Caitlin explained in a break between customer service calls.
Five years ago, she joined the Kenmore Air family as a Seasonal Customer Service Agent. “Kenmore is a great place to work. I absolutely love it here,” she said. A people person through and through, Caitlin’s upbeat attitude made her a perfect fit for working with customers and she was quickly hired on year-round at the Lake Union seaplane terminal.
Quality craftsmanship — that’s what motivates Mike Smith. As the lead machinist and welder at Kenmore Air, doing things the right way every time is essential.
“I like having to do stuff right. I like that part of my job,” said Mike. In his role at Kenmore Air Mike specializes in creating prototypes, fabricating custom parts, making tools, and producing small production runs of parts.
Mari Peterson was born to fly. It’s in her blood. Her great grandfather was a Navy pilot during World War II. And growing up, her dad flew the family’s small airplane.
“He would cruise around in it and commute to Seattle for work. I practically grew up sleeping in the backseat,” Mari told me as she flew one of Kenmore Air’s Cessna Caravan at 4,500 feet over the San Juan Islands.
Yet despite her family lineage, Mari didn’t grow up with dreams of flying professionally. She spent the majority of her formative years living on San Juan Island — riding horses, playing tennis, and cheering for the local high school. She did take a ground school class (a pilot training class) offered through school, but didn’t pursue her pilot’s license immediately.
