William (Bill) Smith, Delta Air Lines
Training in the New Reality
As an industry we have gone from unprecedented prosperity to unprecedented challenges almost overnight. How do we meet the fluid demands of today’s “new reality” while preparing for a future that is seemingly far-off and at the same time has arrived before expected? We will almost certainly need to meet current and future demands with less people, less resources and less time than we had originally planned for. How? I believe collaboration and imagination across the industry will be the key to not just our recovery but a long overdue renaissance. In the spirit of collaboration, we offer a transparent look into what Delta is doing today as a learning organization, our successes, failures, concerns and challenges in the hopes of inspiring even deeper collaboration than ever before. We are all in this together!
Bill Smith, Director TechOps Training and Development, Delta Air Lines
William (Bill) Smith is an aviation professional with more than 35 years’ experience. He is currently the Director over TechOps Training and Development for Delta Air Lines.
He has a diverse industry background starting upon his graduation from the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics. He has served in many roles for Delta, Lockheed and Federal Express. In these roles he routinely works with regulatory authorities and companies all over the world.
He has a passion for growing the AMTs of the future and takes great pride in being referred to as “Bill the mechanic” by other learning leaders. The professional accomplishment he is most proud of is his A&P certificate, a lifelong “license to learn”. On the personal side of things, it is his four wonderful children and his loving wife Julie. They keep him grounded by reminding him that you can’t fix everything, although he stills tries.