2022 AMT 40 Under 40 Maintenance Professionals: Travis L. Reed, Quality Control Inspector, West Star Aviation

Travis Reed has a passion for customer service. He shows commitment to his job and the aviation community. As a quality control inspector for West Star Aviation and specifically Embraer jet service, he focuses on delivering a safe aircraft without delay

“I mostly enjoy working with all the technicians, knowing that we put a safe and airworthy aircraft back into the fleet and watching it fly away,” Reed said.

He also enjoys working through problems and helping come up with solutions. A member of the West Star safety team, he provides suggestions to improve the MRO and has been instrumental in identifying potential issues for the Embraer Phenom fleet that could pose safety issues in the future if not addressed,

Reed’s first aviation job was at Sindelar Aviation in Tennessee. Here, he learned from David Sindelar how to work around aircraft and to always do the right thing when working. According to Reed, Sindelar’s motto is “The right thing to do is the right thing to do."

“I always took this to heart while performing any job,” Reed said. “This made me always be self-cautious of my work, which ultimately drove me to get into the inspection side of the industry.”

At a young age, Reed developed a passion and knowledge for maintenance working on cars with his dad (Donnie Reed). While in A&P school, he placed fifth place in the nation in a SkillsUSA competition and worked part-time for Embraer in addition to working part-time for Sindelar Aviation. When he finished school, he worked for Embraer full-time for almost 10 years and continued to work for Sindelar Aviation for over 10 years. Although he enjoyed working on commercial and general aviation aircraft, he found that he preferred corporate aircraft, where he said industrywide, more attention is given to detail and cleanliness.

Now, having been in aviation for 13 years, he is known for having a positive attitude and helping both new and seasoned technicians become better A&Ps.

“I am passionate about working with young techs getting into the industry,” he said. “I really enjoy training and coming up with new ideas to improve the flow of maintenance or even something that may help the everyday tasks in the hangar.”

The job itself is, of course, not without stress, and he said preparing someone for the stress and unseen pressures of the industry, especially when they’re first starting out, is hard to do.

He would like to see more young technicians getting into aircraft maintenance, bringing new ideas and perspectives to the industry, and he would like to see more companies become paperless with electronic maintenance manuals.

Though he’s passionate about his work, he also enjoys spending time with his family – which is said is most important, hiking, mountain biking, camping, fishing and working on old vehicles.