By Eric Gloris, Veryon Senior Director of Professional Services
I grew up in a hangar.
Most kids I knew in grade school woke up to Saturday morning cartoons, or they’d enjoy some quiet time reading comic books. I would wake up to the sound of air tools screaming, an air compressor running on the other side of my bedroom wall, or a freshly overhauled engine being test-run on the ramp about 100 feet from where I slept. My favorite comic was Trade-a-Plane. My dad owned and operated a Part 91 maintenance facility, and our family lived in the hangar.
I learned early that aviation maintenance isn't just a job. Lives depend on the quality of your work. Every rivet shot, every inspection completed, every signature in a logbook carries weight because someone's going to trust that aircraft with their life.
I worked for my dad as a general aviation mechanic before joining the Air Force, where I served as a maintenance data systems analyst supporting F-16 operations. That combination of hands-on maintenance and operational systems work taught me something critical: aviation maintenance isn't about blindly following steps in a manual. It's about understanding why things fail and fixing the root cause, not just swapping parts because that's what the book says. Any inexperienced person can follow a checklist. Experience teaches you to think past it.
After the Air Force, my career moved into litigation consulting and professional services leadership, but what I learned early in life from aviation maintenance has always stayed at the center. Attention to detail. Zero room for error. Repeatable and defensible processes. Before joining Veryon as Senior Director of Professional Services, I spent time at Deloitte, where I worked in cyber incident response and wore all of the hats in high-growth startups managing complex operational environments. But no matter where my career took me, one truth remained constant: technology doesn't solve operational challenges on its own. People, process, and execution do.
The Shortage Isn't Just About Headcount
We all know the numbers. The aviation industry is dealing with a severe workforce crunch, with current data pointing to a 10% shortage in certificated mechanics required to keep commercial fleets running smoothly. That gap is widening rapidly: the U.S. is on track to face a shortage of 30,000 technicians by 2028, nearly doubling the current shortfall.
The root of the problem is a rapidly aging workforce. The average FAA-certificated mechanic is 51 years old, and a massive retirement wave is coming, with over 30% of today's workforce expected to reach retirement age before 2030. The training pipeline simply isn't keeping pace with these departures, so the deficit grows every year. Looking at the long-term horizon, Boeing projects the global industry will need 710,000 new maintenance technicians over the next 20 years to sustain global air travel.
But the real challenge isn't filling seats. It's depth. Twenty years of experience tends to take roughly… 20 years to accumulate. You might have a solid team in place, but when something complex hits or workload spikes, there's no backup. No additional layer for specialized knowledge. No room to absorb the unexpected. That's when things start to slow down, or worse, quality suffers.
The operators navigating this environment most effectively aren't trying to hire for every possible scenario. They're building flexibility into their operations by extending their teams with the right expertise at the right time. Sometimes that's support for technical records cleanup. Sometimes it's extra hands during heavy maintenance cycles. Often, it's audit support.
Audits Are Where Resource Gaps Show Up Fast
Preparing for an audit takes time, focus, and attention to detail. What typically happens is your most experienced people get pulled from daily operations to handle prep work, creating a ripple effect across the rest of the team. Aircraft schedules tighten. Routine work stacks up. Small issues that should be caught early are starting to slip through.
This is where my litigation consulting background becomes directly relevant. In legal work, everything has to be repeatable and defensible. You can't just say you did something right. You prove it with documentation, process controls, and audit trails that stand up to scrutiny. Aviation maintenance operates under the same standard. Every action you take has to be defensible because regulators are going to examine it, and lives depend on it.
With the right support in place, you can stay ahead of audit requirements instead of reacting to them. You identify and fix gaps early. You keep your internal team focused on keeping aircraft moving while experienced resources handle the preparation work. It's not about handing things off. It's about reinforcing what you already have so your operation doesn't grind to a halt every time an audit shows up.
How the Fleet Performance Partnership Addresses This Reality
This is exactly the role of Veryon's Fleet Performance Partnership. It's not an add-on service. It's part of what every Veryon customer receives from day one. The model is designed to give operators access to both ongoing support and deeper operational expertise when needed, without adding permanent headcount.
Every customer works with a dedicated Customer Success Manager who understands your operation in detail. That's your primary point of contact who knows your fleet, your processes, and your challenges. Behind that is a broader team of specialists across maintenance programs, regulatory compliance, diagnostics, technical records, and publications. When you need additional expertise or bandwidth, whether for audit preparation, a maintenance event, or troubleshooting a complex issue, the partnership scales with your operation.
Because aviation doesn't operate on a schedule, neither do we. Support is available 24/7/365. I've been on the other side of that equation. I know what it's like when something breaks at 2 a.m., and you need an answer right now because an aircraft is grounded.
Execution Matters More Than Tools
Software gives you the tools, but tools don't deliver results on their own. Execution does. That's why the Fleet Performance Partnership focuses heavily on adoption and ongoing engagement, not just system implementation. We guide teams through onboarding with a structured approach. We stay involved well beyond go-live. We provide training that fits how your team actually works because the goal isn't simply to have a system in place. It's to make sure it delivers measurable value every day.
I learned this lesson in the hangar: you don't hand someone a tool and walk away. You show them how to use it, explain why it matters, and stay engaged until they can do it themselves confidently. The same principle applies to aviation software. The technology is only as good as the people using it and the processes supporting it.
What Extending Your Team Actually Delivers
When you combine the right technology with the right people at the right time, things start to shift. Workflows become more efficient. Troubleshooting improves because you're addressing root causes, not just symptoms. Audit readiness becomes proactive instead of reactive. Aircraft availability improves as a result.
But the biggest change I see is in the team itself. People are no longer stretched thin trying to cover every gap internally. They have experienced resources available when they need them, which means they can stay focused on what they do best: keeping aircraft moving safely and efficiently.
This Is How We Think About Partnership
The Fleet Performance Partnership isn't a product feature. It's a philosophy built on the same principles I learned growing up in that hangar: when lives depend on your work, you do it right the first time. You don't cut corners. You understand the system well enough to think past the manual. And when you need help, you bring in people with real experience who've been there before.
Let’s talk about where you could use support
If labor constraints, audits, or resource limitations are creating pressure across your organization, it may be time to rethink how your team is being supported.
Whether you need help preparing for an audit, managing a major maintenance event, or accessing deeper expertise on demand, we’re here to help.
Let’s start with a conversation. Contact me today to get started!