Q: What is your name, where are you from?
A: My name is Nick and I am from New Hampshire.

Q: What are three interesting things about you that no one would guess?
A: I listen to metal music, I’m afraid of heights and I’ve been to 20 countries.

Q: What were you doing before you came to LIFT?
A: Before I came to LIFT Academy, I was a professional ski jumper for 9 years, and just before LIFT, I was a biomedical electronic technician.

Q: What do you think helped prep you best for LIFT?
A: I used to fly in flight simulators whenever I could. When I was skiing professionally, I traveled with rudder pedals, a joystick and flight simulator software whenever there was space in my bags.

Q: What did your journey to aviation look like?
A: I remember the first time I was drawn to aviation. I was on a flight from Boston to Salt Lake City for the Junior Olympics. I remember during takeoff that I felt it was one of the coolest things ever and that I thought to myself, “I would like to do this.” My journey to aviation was long. After I graduated from high school, I deferred my acceptance to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University for a year and proceeded to ski jump professionally for the next nine years. After that, I came home, got a normal job and looked into the ways I could get back involved in aviation, which is when I found LIFT.

Q: What do you remember about your first week/day at LIFT?
A: It was intense! I know it would be a lot of work to become a pilot. Going into training for my private license was a big immediate jump into flight training, after not studying for a while, my habits had to change quickly!

Q: What is life like as a student at LIFT?
A: Being a student was work! I needed to stay focused, to work hard, knowing that I was constantly working towards my goals. It was great knowing that my peers were also doing the same thing. It was a lot to get used to at first, but was a great experience and fun to work with everyone, and I was always excited for every flight!

Q: What is life like as a CFI at LIFT?
A: So far, being a CFI is challenging in its own way. It is exciting to see students progress in their training and taking my feedback and using it in our next flight together. I also enjoy getting to know and creating relationships with my students.

Q: Why do you want to be a commercial airline pilot? What are you looking forward to after you become one?
A: I would like to be a professional pilot because the idea of flying huge and complex machines through challenging conditions safely while connecting people to where they want to be seems like an extremely fulfilling job.

Q: Why has LIFT been a good fit for you?
A: LIFT has been a great fit for me for many reasons, but one of the top is the people. I think LIFT also has a different feeling than other flight schools, has given me the opportunity to make great connections with others, fit my desire for accelerated flight training and I love that I have goals to work towards and achieve.

Q: How would you describe the LIFT atmosphere?
A: I’ve made some great friends at LIFT that I spend time with outside of the hangar, lifelong friends. At LIFT itself, I feel that the atmosphere is very professional with a major emphasis on safety.

Q: Advice to yourself?
A: Don’t be so hard on yourself. Emphasize the positives when you can. Take all the little victories you can.

Q: What do you do for fun outside of training?
A: I enjoy hiking, skiing, building computers, cars and working on cars, working out and cooking.