Step Back to Move Forward

It can be easy to get caught up in the moment. We all go about jobs every day and do the things necessary to keep our business running. Sometimes, it’s just a series of steps that are required to get through the day, and if our business continues to grow, we can find ourselves easily overwhelmed – working long hours and often putting out a series of fires.

Eventually, the need to keep up with growth can bury us with day-to-day responsibilities. If we are a conscientious manager, we won’t take on so much that our core values suffer – but the inevitable result is that we will be somewhat limited in our ability to grow further.

This is why it’s important to regularly step back from our day-to-day duties to evaluate where we are and put steps in place that can ensure growth. This may mean assigning duties to other people, reorganizing the management of our department, or hiring additional personnel to absorb some of the work that we are currently performing.

It’s important that when we do step back – we start by reminding ourselves of our core values, strengths and points of difference, and be sure that we are doing everything we can to meet the objectives by which we started our job or business.

As business owners of both D.O.M.and Helicopter Maintenancemagazines, we are faced with the same challenge. We have been growing at a regular pace since we launched in 2008, and it’s very easy to get mired in all the duties and responsibilities it takes to run a publishing company. I often take the time to step back and look at where we are going and how we got there. I

For those of you that don’t know why we started D.O.M., let me explain.

Our Editor, Joe Escobar and I are both A&P mechanics – and we have both worked as editors for other aircraft maintenance publications. As we travelled around from maintenance facility to maintenance facility talking to maintenance personnel, it became apparent to us that there were many mechanics in the aircraft industry that were promoted to management positions without receiving any type of training.

In fact, the reason that most were promoted to a management position or director of maintenance was often because they were really good mechanics! But what makes someone a really good mechanic is not necessarily what makes him or her a good manager.

So we decided it was time for a publication that could help DOMs who had not received much training do their jobs better while also helping mechanics make the transition and prepare for the journey up the management ladder.

Whether it is to transition from a mechanic to a lead mechanic, or from a lead mechanic to a department manager, or from a department manager to a business owner – many of the same principles of management need to be learned and applied.

To date, we are the ONLY publication that is dedicated to helping people manage aircraft maintenance facilities. Our tight focus on that mission has made us the number one aircraft maintenance publication by just about any measure.

We invite you to let us know how we are doing or if you have any ideas for stories or for improving our editorial. We also would like to remind you to let our advertisers know you like our publication. The magazine continues to be provided free of charge to you because of our advertisers.

As always, thank you for reading.

Greg Napert

Publisher, D.O.M.magazine