James Billard

Background

About James Billard

I started my career in the aviation world back in the early 80's as a student working with then Transport Canada, Airports in Goose Bay, Labrador as a summer student employed with the Navigation Aids branch. That wetted my desire to pursue a career in the Aviation Industry and in 1985 I enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces as Communications and Radar Systems Technician. After extensive training in Kingston and Borden, ON, I was posted to CFB Greenwood, NS and spent the next 18 years in both 1st, 2nd and 3rd Line environments mastering the avionics on the CP-140 Aurora. I was then tasked with implementing an apprentice training course with 3 other avionics technicians to impart our vast repertoire of experience to new apprentices in the Technical Training Flight which became a gold standard for initial and on-going training. After 23 years of serving in the Air Force I made the decision to leave the military for opportunities in the aviation industry and took a position with Air Canada Jazz as a Maintenance Planner in Halifax, NS. As a Maintenance Planner my responsibilities were to schedule and monitor completion of overnight work packages to ensure aircraft availability for scheduled flying. I have since moved into the Maintenance Event Planning which deals with more extensive work tasks and repairs requiring extended downtime on the Air Canada Jazz CRJ-200, CRJ-705, E-175 and DH8-400 Fleets. I have extensive experience with TRAX maintenance software as well as Omega Airline Software - AMES. I'm looking forward to my continuing career in the Aviation industry and all opportunities that come my way.