John Haggerty had always loved planes and has fond memories of sitting on top of his mom’s car with her watching the planes land at Chicago’s airport. Growing up, being a pilot was his dream, but Haggerty lives with type 1 diabetes, and at the time of his schooling, that was a disqualifying condition for a pilot.
Haggerty had to move from Illinois to Arizona in the middle of his high school career. Moving across the country is difficult for anyone, but it is especially tough for someone halfway through high school. Haggerty struggled with this transition; his grades suffered, and it became hard for him to function overall.
Haggerty thought his aviation dreams were nullified until he heard about West-MEC from one of his counselors at Centennial High School.
“My counselor told me about the Aviation Maintenence Technology program at West-MEC and she had to pull a lot of strings to get me in because of my attendance,” said Haggerty. “After the two years of being there, I would say, not only did it give me my career, it saved my life.”
Haggerty began the aviation program in 2016, finished in 2018, and got a job at the Goodyear Airport doing heavy maintenance in the same year. Heavy maintenance, in the simplest terms, is essentially gutting the entire plane and putting it back together again while fixing any problems found along the way.
After three years at Goodyear Airport, Haggerty got a new job this year as a line maintenance technician at Sky Harbor Airport. It is a step up for him in his aviation career, and now his role is to perform the essential checks on a plane to ensure it is safe to fly.
“It’s funny, I have never interviewed for a job I’ve gotten because it’s such a small world in aviation maintenance,” said Haggerty. “West-MEC is really taking the lead of aviation education because they are giving high school kids an opportunity at a very low cost, along with their other programs as well.”
West-MEC gave Haggerty a sense of belonging, structure, and a hands-on learning experience that one doesn’t typically receive at a traditional high school.
“With West-MEC, you’re required to be there. You have to get your 1900 hours of experience in the aviation program in order to complete it,” said Haggerty. “Because of that, it gave me structure and it gave me purpose, and without that, I don’t know where I would be at today. I was doing something I loved, surrounded by very like-minded people.”
Nowadays, Haggerty loves his job, owns a home, and owns a 2021 Dodge Challenger SRT 392. He couldn’t have seen where he would end up, but there is so much room to grow in the aviation world, so who knows where he will be in five more years.
