Tim Mensonides
Airport Manager
Bremerton National Airport
AGE: 34
- Alma Mater: University of Puget Sound
- What is your dream job? Flying float planes in Alaska or the Caribbean – the type of flying where there is a new adventure every day
- Who has impacted your career the most? My parents, they gave me the passion for aviation beginning the day I was born
- If I could go anywhere, it would be: Italy/Greece
- If I could have dinner with anyone living or dead: Jesus Christ
- Favorite airport restaurant/eatery: Cavanaugh Bay, Idaho (66S)
Tim Mensonides has been around aviation his entire life. Both of his parents are pilots and ever since he was two weeks old, he has been inside a plane.
“When my mom got her pilots license she was pregnant with me so the joke was she never truly soloed,” Mensonides said. “It’s my passion. I’ve been enamored by airports for as long as I can remember, so I feel blessed and love that I get to go work at an airport every day.
Mensonides was recently hired as airport manager at the Bremerton National Airport (PWT) after spending many years as an operations coordinator at Arlington Municipal Airport (AWO). He serves on the Washington Airport Management Association (WAMA) board of directors as vice president.
Mensonides said like many in the industry he also started off wanting to be a pilot, but found it wouldn’t be feasible. Mensonides started his career out of college fueling and servicing aircraft at an FBO at Tacoma Narrows Airport (TIW). He moved to an FBO at Boeing Field and his now wife and him were looking at getting married, so instead of going to fly float planes in Alaska and live in a travel trailer while trying to support a family, he wrote a letter to every major airport in the state of Washington and met with airport managers to figure out what it would be like to work at an airport.
The adventure is what keeps him hooked in aviation, especially working at a general aviation airport.
“I identify with our users. We have the same interests and passions and the potential,” Mensonides said. “One mile of road will take you one mile, but one mile of runway, the potential is limitless and will take you anywhere you want.”
Outside of his role of operating the airport, Mensonides said he feels a duty to get the next generation interested in aviation while creating a symbiotic relationship with the community to understand how it benefits from the airports via events and fly-ins at PWT.
“Maybe they don’t want to be pilots. Maybe they’re interested in manufacturing or aerodynamics, he said. “but anything that can just generate that interest I try to be a part of.”
