Mark Saretsky, 2018 AMT Next Gen 40 Under 40 Award Winner
Mark Saretsky's family has been involved in aviation his entire life. "I grew up in a family where everyone worked in the industry. I was continually exposed to the wonders of aviation."
Saretsky's grandpa loved to fly and he passed along his extreme passion for flight. "I knew from the time I was 5 years old that I wanted to be involved in the industry. Every moment I had I was focused on something related to aviation. I was around 15 when my grandpa sent me up for my first flight with an instructor. That day solidified what I wanted to do for a career."
He received a bachelor of science in aviation management at Central Washington University and his MBA from Seattle University in 2016. He has achieved Six Sigma Green Belt Certification and Six Sigma Black Belt Certification at Alaska Airlines.
He worked as a customer service agent for Alaska Airlines while attending Central Washington University. This helped him understand the entire operation while also recognizing the daily challenges. After graduating, he transitioned into process improvement with Alaska Airlines and worked many large key initiatives across the organization. In 2011 he took on the role of productivity engineer at Aviation Technical Services and focused on projects in component services group and learning about the MRO business. Then he was promoted to supply chain manager and worked with the team to implement a predictive inventory planning system. His current position is the site director for the components facility in Everett, WA, which includes management of the P&L and the operations group.
Nominated by Mike Beck, Senior Vice President/Executive Advisor, Aviation Technical Services: "Over the last five years Mark has been instrumental to the success of our components business by streamlining the organizational structure, reducing costs, and ultimately increasing revenue by 50 percent while doubling site profitability. As a result of his creativity and leadership, Mark was promoted to site leader in 2017, making him the youngest site leader in ATS by more than a decade. Mark also designed, built, and implemented an electronic work order system from scratch. The system was a significant operations improvement because it provided key material information in real time directly to operations and customer service as they evaluated and quoted jobs. The system also improved quality and compliance because it was linked to training and employee qualifications preventing employees from approving tasks they were not qualified to do. Mark was able to obtain FAA approval for electronic sign off within the system, which allowed us to have a paperless, accurate clean work order document for our operations group and our customers. Mark has been a tremendous asset for ATS and we wish we had more like him."
Nominated by Nick Heminger, Senior Manager, Safety Management Systems, Aviation Technical Services: "It is safe to say that with his father as a senior executive at several major airlines, two uncles and a grandfather who were commercial pilots, and an aunt who was a flight attendant, aviation is an established gene within Mark’s DNA. Mark was instrumental in streamlining key processes to minimize waste and create more value for our customers. Mark’s innate ability to facilitate initiatives and coordinate cross functional teams made him an obvious candidate to serve ATS in a management role. He was initially promoted to oversee our supply chain processes, but has since risen through the organization to his current responsibility as site director. Mark continues to identify ways to minimize component repair cycle times and assure the prompt delivery of ATS product and services. He does this while at all times embracing and promoting total quality management as a key to customer satisfaction. Mark continues to independently pursue his own professional development and recently achieved a master's degree in business administration from Seattle University. He never fails to impress customers and co-workers with his skillset, self-motivation, positive attitude, and passion to resolve any operational issue."
To give back to the industry, Saretsky works closely with Central Washington University to recruit new graduates into roles at Aviation Technical Services.
The MRO industry has made great strides when it comes to reliability and quality, but has not embraced technology as quickly as some industries. Saretsky's career has allowed him to work closely with many talented individuals to develop and implement some industry-leading technology. "My career goal is to focus on driving excellent value by leveraging new technology solutions and building customer and supplier partnerships."
