Introduction

Hello fellow aviation enthusiasts,

  My name is Joe Shonk.  Aviation has been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember.  Like all of you I am truly excited to complete the milestone of graduating and becoming a part of the aviation industry.  It has been an interesting, educational, rewarding, and most of all expensive voyage getting to this point in my career, and I look forward to life with a college degree in my hands.  

  When I was eight years old I caught the ‘flying bug’ after a family friend took me for a ride in his Cessna 152.  Busing tables and delivering papers, I was able to save enough money to attend the Air Academy in Oshkosh Wisconsin and completely by accident I was there during the Air-venture airshow.  Consequently I came home knowing what I was going to do with my life.  Before I graduated high school, and even before I had a drivers’ license, I was a certified private pilot.  Figuring out what I wanted to be when I grew up took almost no time at all, surprisingly, I discovered attending college is remarkably expensive even more quickly.  After high school I worked a number of different low wage jobs to afford part-time status in school, this went on for five years of slow academic progress and long hours for short paychecks.  At age 23 I enlisted in the Air National Guard at Selfridge Michigan, and took a 9 month break from flying and school to attend basic military training and the Air Force Technical training program to become an A-10 Crew Chief.  The military has given me the drive and discipline (not to mention the funding) to complete my degree at 22 credit hour semester leaps at a time.  Upon graduating I will be a full time Crew Chief at Selfridge, my first job to return a sense of satisfaction, maintaining A-10’s at mission-capable status.  This position will grant me a great opportunity to stay in contact with the members of our squadron, to better prepare myself for my ultimate goal: a fighter pilot position.  Some mornings don’t come soon enough, there is still so much to do.

  Thank you for reading, I’ll see you in class.

“It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill” -Wilbur Wright