03 / Service record
Standardization Instructor Pilot — 160th SOAR (Night Stalkers)
Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The most elite helicopter unit in the U.S. military. The pilot other pilots trained against.
The unit
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment — the Night Stalkers. The pilots who fly the missions that don’t make the news. Tier-one support. Five-word motto:
Night Stalkers Don’t Quit.
What I flew
Every model of Blackhawk the Army has — UH-60 and MH-60, A model, L model, M model. Over twenty years of service across fourteen countries.
What “Standardization Instructor Pilot” means
I was the pilot who trained and evaluated other pilots. The one who set the standard others were measured against. Every certification, every check-ride, every emergency-procedure validation — I was on the other side of it.
The reason this matters for what I do now: standardization at this level is a forcing function for clarity. You cannot evaluate a thing you haven’t precisely defined. The translation to manufacturing AI is direct.
Asset and program scale
- $48M in aviation assets under my direct management.
- 98% readiness rate sustained across that fleet.
- $4.6M test and evaluation program delivered on time, on budget, with zero safety incidents.
What landing in a brownout teaches you
Compound landing, zero visibility, dust completely engulfing the aircraft. You trust your instruments, you trust your crew, you trust the process. That’s not a metaphor — it’s how you survive. The same trust-the-process discipline is what makes AI deployment work on a manufacturing floor.
I flew into brownouts for a living. Now I solve them on the plant floor.