Around the first of the year, the State of Montana, DOT, Aeronautics Division, posted a job opening with the title of Aviation Support Officer.
My lifetime career has been twofold: heavy industrial / commercial construction and aviation, along with 30+years of air/ ground SAR (search & rescue) missions in Alaska & Colorado. I have owned my construction company for more than thirty years, providing construction management services in the U.S. and overseas. Starting in 1972, I paid for my own schooling and “earned” nearly every pilot and flight instructor rating the FAA issues. I have logged thousands of hours in aircraft ranging from small singles to large transport category aircraft for the airlines, both in the US and overseas.
The DOT POSTING included REQUIREMENTS to have at least a Private Pilot license, an extensive construction management background, with accounting, planning, surveying, and aviation related skills. Job duties included basically what I have been doing for a living for the past 35 years, and included to serve as SAR commander. It appeared I had written the requirements myself to exclude everyone else who applied. The head of Aeronautics told me a candidate was hired who met the minimum requirements. How about hiring the candidate with OUTSTANDING qualifications?
Being highly disappointed, I paid for a background investigation for the person hired and it revealed the published REQUIREMENTS were not met. It evidenced the person selected had a small amount of the required qualifications that I, and probably others, brought to the table. This statement is not ego driven, it is fact. Huge blunder: In the Montana DOT publication, Montana and the Sky, March 2011, pg. 2, the newly hired person is introduced to the public. The article gives the person’s background as 25 years in the trucking business and then 9 years working for a lumber company in sales and management. This background was published by the DOT itself and clearly reveals the “good old boy” who was hired does not meet the qualifications published for the job. The State unwittingly evidenced its own corrupt hiring practices for all to see. “Google” Montana and the Sky to read it. Once again, this is not my opinion. It is fact. The selection process was a sham and a waste of everyone else’s time who applied in good faith with hopes of being selected. I filed a complaint with the Governor’s Citizen’s Advocacy Department and they had the DOT do the investigation! Guess the results. ”The fox is guarding the henhouse”. What the Montana DOT, the Montana Dept. of Aeronautics, and the Governor’s office have done, in my opinion, is to lose credibility & gain additional disrespect from their peers….the taxpayers & citizens of Montana, and especially those QUALIFIED folks looking for a good job to feed their families and make a living

I am not sure what you are asking.