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Transcript:

Jeremy Kariuki: Hello and welcome to the BCA Podcast by Aviation Week. I'm your host, Jeremy Kariuki, associate editor for Business Aviation. This week, we're speaking with Hertz senior director of aviation and former US Army pilot, Keith Northcutt, about his work with the Corporate Angel Network. The organization recently announced its newest CEO, Robert Stangarone, and plans to grow its reach to more patients across the country.

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All right, so Keith Northcutt, thank you so much for joining me today.

Keith Northcutt: Yeah, you're welcome. Glad to be on.

Jeremy Kariuki: Will you tell me more about how you got into the aviation industry? And tell me about your career thus fall.

Keith Northcutt: Okay, yeah, so I'll start with the career and that'll lead into the aviation piece, how I entered it. All right.

Joined the military out of high school and decided it was a parachute rigger for a couple of years, for almost six and a half, and then decided, hey, I wanted to go to flight school. And the Army afforded me the opportunity to go without having a degree at the time, so I did. I put in the packet for flight school, got selected, went and did good things there. Started off my flying career as a helicopter pilot, flying both Hueys and Black Hawks, and then slowly transitioned to the fixed wing side of the house in 2004, where I've flown every variant of a fixed wing airplane that Army has.

Did that for, military time was 29 years total, and retired in September of '20 and immediately went over to Lowe's corporate office and flew for them for three years, and then transitioned down to Florida last May to take over as the senior director of aviation for Hertz.

Jeremy Kariuki: That's amazing. During that time, when and how did you get involved with the Corporate Angel Network?

Keith Northcutt: All right, so as I got to Hertz, that's how I first heard of it and got involved, as they were already involved by helping move passengers around where they needed to be to get them home or to get them to locations without having to go through the rigorous role of trying to go through a airport after being seen and going through any medical stuff that they have to do. As they reached out to me, when I took over, I was glad to continue to do that, to support that organization. The things that they're doing for those patients and just to see the smile on the families as well as the patient, to be able to do that for them, that just means so much for me.

Jeremy Kariuki: And do you know how many flights you've flown for CAN, and which one of those has been your most memorable so far?

Keith Northcutt: So far for me, I've flown two for them, but the organization, as I look back, has flown quite a few. But the one that's most memorable for me, which I've only had two so far, but was for one of our patients, young patients out of Naples, her father is a police officer. But just to see that teenage high school student going through everything and to have the strength and the smile on her face, it just meant so much. It showed me that what we do, you don't take it for granted because you never know what tomorrow brings. And her father shared her story with me, the email, one of the things she wrote for school, and then that touched my heart so deep to see the strength of how she is resolving through this.

Jeremy Kariuki: And are you continuing your work with CANs so far, and do you plan to do more flights this year?

Keith Northcutt: Absolutely. Anytime they give a call, if we can support, we're going to be there to support.

Jeremy Kariuki: Are you involved with any other aviation nonprofits or nonprofit organizations in general?

Keith Northcutt: No, we're not. This is right now our sole source, but if we can assist, we are looking to do that.

Jeremy Kariuki: I would love to hear more about your military background as well. Myself being a veteran of the Georgia Air National Guard, I'd love to know more about your experience as a pilot, and of course as a Black pilot, as there's not too many of you guys out there. Could you tell me more about that?

Keith Northcutt: Yes, definitely. You're right, there's not many out there, and I would tell you it was never more than two in one location, as I was stationed throughout pretty much everywhere through the world. But it was great. Everyone that I came across was excellent. It didn't matter the color of the skin, it was the person and the heart. And regardless, you reach down and talk to the people, listen, and be able to share your stories, you'll be surprised of who you can touch that way. And then I felt over my career, I had the opportunity to do that.

Jeremy Kariuki: And are there any challenges that you face specifically maybe because of your race, but even just generally as a pilot in this field?

Keith Northcutt: Absolutely, yeah. As you know, flight school for the Army is in Fort Rucker, Alabama. They say LA, but we call that it is lower Alabama. And the deep South, it's got some rich history there, and there's some things that were there when I went to flight school. I continue to think it gets better every day, but it's only as good as we impart ourselves into it to be able to, not only go through those things, be able to teach as well and to teach everyone that follows behind us.

For me, that's history for me, is to not only what you endured, but be able to pass that on so people can be better going forward. And once again, it doesn't matter the color of the skin. Everybody is going to make a change, and whatever you do on your part to help that, that's what's going to be the part that makes that history.

Jeremy Kariuki: Could you describe the process of not only becoming a pilot for CAN, but conducting a mission for CAN? I know it may not be as simple as just climbing on a plane full of people and just taking it somewhere. There's a lot of communication between multiple parties. Where does the pilot fit into that process other than just flying the plane?

Keith Northcutt: Okay, yeah, so they have a copy of our schedule. If they know we're going to be operating in that area, usually they'll reach out to me and say, "Hey, do you have any seats available?" Of course, if there's times where we have our executives on board, sometimes we may have to say, "Well, hey, they got business stuff going on. We can't bring people on." But I've never had it where my boss, our CEOs even sure didn't say, "Hey, I fully support that." He's just that type of person. The organization we are in is just that type of organization. It is to make this place better. And Hertz, we want to impart everything that we can to be able to do that.

Once we receive those missions, they'll call me. We talk back and forth, try to get the timing down. I'll let them know what time we're going to be there, what time they need to be there, but they've got it set up so well that once I give them the time we're going to land, their goal is to have them there at that location an hour prior, so that way when we land, I can impart my passengers and then I can start focusing on the CAN passengers.

Our goal is to make their flight as easy and to make it something very significant that whoever it is will always remember. We try to provide catering for them, so that way they can come on, relax, be able to give them the Wi-Fi information so they can watch movies or whatever they need to do, just to make that comfortable, because we know what they're going through is hard. I've never endured cancer myself, so I can't say as most people say, "I know what you're going through." I can't say that, because I don't, but what I can say is, "Whatever you're going through, my goal is to make it as easy as possible for you."

Jeremy Kariuki: For a pilot that might be on the fence about working for CAN or flying for CAN, what advice would you give to them?

Keith Northcutt: I would tell them to get off that fence. The things, what you're doing, the impact you're making, not just to that network, but to those patients, to those families, there is no fence in front of me when it comes to that. If it was a fence there, it's removed. And if it's any of them, I would tell them to remove that fence and just know what you are going to assist. And not only that, your organization is involved. How are you going to make your organization look by doing things to help during these kind of circumstances? That means it all to me.

Jeremy Kariuki: As I'm sure you've heard, CAN has a new CEO incoming, Robert Stangarone. Do you know him personally? And how do you feel about the direction of the organization moving forward?

Keith Northcutt: I don't know him personally, but I did read up on him, as they sent out the emails to us when they have those changes, because we feel like we're not only supporting CAN, we feel like we're a part of CAN, of the organization. That's how we inject ourselves, is we're not just assisting, we're part of their team. When they make those kinds of changes, I try to stay involved. I always talk with my leadership team about it, the changes that are being made. But anytime there's change, a lot of times it's for good. And so that's what we're just going to embark on is, hey, whatever they're still going to need for us to assist, we're going to be here to help the new CEO, whoever it is.

Jeremy Kariuki: Awesome. Well, that's all I have for you today, Keith. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Keith Northcutt: Okay, you're welcome. Anytime.

Jeremy Kariuki: Thanks for listening to the BCA Podcast by Aviation Week Network. This week's episode was produced by Andrea Copley-Smith. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to like or follow us on your podcast app of choice. If you'd like to support us, please leave a rating wherever you listen. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.