“I was working at a general aviation shop while I was going to college, and I realized I really enjoyed working on aircraft and watching them fly away,” says Matthew Register. The shop’s owner helped him decide that obtaining an A&P license was his best path forward, which led Register to study at PIA— and also to his first post-PIA job.

“[The shop’s owner] was friends with the Director of Maintenance for Aerial Solutions, who basically recruited me to come work with him,” says Register. As a helicopter technician, he helps maintain Aerial Solutions’s fleet of eleven MD 500 helicopters, which use specialized aerial saws to trim trees for more than 20 different utilities, pipeline companies, and government agencies. The job involves lots of travel to serve customers in over 10 states. But no matter how challenging it can be — including the day he had to swap out a helicopter engine in the middle of a freezing cow pasture in Virginia — Register says his PIA experience helped prepare him for almost anything: “Every day on this job is unique.”