People

Jim Gaughan

Metron Aviation, of Dulles, Va., named Jim Gaughan president and CEO. Gaughan was appointed chief operating officer following the Airbus acquisition of Metron Aviation, and now succeeds Dave Ellison as part of the company’s post-merger transition plan.

Gaughan has more than 25 years of experience in air traffic management, systems engineering, software development and product integration with a long track record of success in managing large, complex programs for FAA and other customers.

Josh Woodall

Flight Display Systems, based in Alpharetta, Ga., appointed Josh Woodall customer support lead.

Woodall has more than three years of experience in mission critical aircraft avionics support leadership as a field support engineer lead with the Sierra Nevada Corp. in Iraq. Additionally, Woodall spent 10 years in active duty with the Air Force.

Gulfstream Appointments

Gulfstream Aerospace appointed Jeff Kreide vice president of Business Solutions. In this new role, Kreide will be responsible for developing and managing integrated business solutions to support all facets of Gulfstream, including Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Enterprise Resource Planning.

Kreide has been with Gulfstream for 30 years, serving in a variety of management positions. Prior to this promotion, he was the director of PLM. Before that, he was the director of Savannah Final Phase and Standards Engineering.

Pedro Mercado

The company also named Pedro Mercado a national sales manager for Product Support Interior Refurbishment Sales. Mercado’s territory is the Eastern seaboard of the United States, from South Carolina to Maine.

Mercado is responsible for sales of interior aircraft enhancements for Gulfstream customers, including avionics upgrades, interior component replacement and reconfiguration, the installation of sound-suppression materials and paint services.
Most recently, Mercado spent nearly five years as a service center supervisor for Interior Refurbishment at Gulfstream in Long Beach, Calif.

Trevor Stedke

Southwest Airlines named Trevor Stedke vice president of technical services, with responsibility for engineering services and standards, quality, maintenance safety, powerplant and aircraft programs.

Stedke comes to Southwest from FedEx, where he was managing director of aircraft engineering planning and performance. His areas of responsibility at FedEx included aircraft engineering; aircraft maintenance programs; propulsion engineering; air operations technology; engineering planning; aircraft reliability; air operations standards, analysis and controls; engineering support; and airline fleet management.

Paul Wroble

Paul Wroble has been appointed vice president, maintenance operations at US Airways. Wroble will lead the heavy maintenance organizations, including US Airways’ base maintenance operations, all contract heavy maintenance operations, ground service equipment operations and the company’s line maintenance operations supporting the hub operations in Charlotte, N.C., Philadelphia and Phoenix, as well as all other line maintenance stations.

Most recently, Wroble was vice president, maintenance and engineering for Pinnacle Airlines. Previously, he worked in Northwest Airlines’ maintenance and engineering organization for more than 20 years.

Miranda Mills

Inmarsat appointed Miranda Mills vice president, aerospace, for Global Xpress. She will be responsible for developing all Global Xpress aeronautical services worldwide.

Mills was most recently in global sales and marketing at Astrium. Before that, she spent 14 years with Airbus in various roles, including responsibility for Services Strategy and Business Development for the A320 family in the U.K., and vice president, sales, for South Asia.

Jeff Potter

Aviation consulting and research firm Boyd Group International named Jeff Potter president and CEO. Potter joins the firm with more than 30 years in the travel and
transportation industry.

Starting with Frontier Airlines in 1981, he held positions with Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft, before progressing to CEO of Vanguard Airlines. He later became CEO of Denver-based Frontier Airlines.

Ralph Kunz

Greenwich AeroGroup named Ralph Kunz general manager of Summit Aviation.

Kunz has more than 20 years of aerospace operations experience, including stints at Keystone/Sikorsky Helicopters, Vector Aerospace and Parker Hannifin. Kunz most recently was vice president of operations for Airborne Tactical Advantage Company.

Christian Olivier

Esterline CMC Electronics appointed Christian Olivier as vice president, operations. He will be responsible for operations, supply chain management, master planning, facilities management and IT across all three of the company’s facilities.

Olivier has broad international experience in the aerospace and electronics sectors. After 10 years with the Direction Générale pour l’Armement de France, he held positions at Nortel Networks, STMicroelectronics and e2v Technologies. During his career, he has worked in France, United States, Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom, China, Vietnam and Korea.