Jeremy's Bio

[ExpressJet Jeremy]

Hi, I’m Jeremy. I am a Captain with ExpressJet Airlines and a former ATP instructor.

My passion for flying began when I was very young. My father was a glider pilot, and I remember going to the airport to play with the other kids while their fathers’ went flying. My interest in flying grew from there, and I eventually wanted to go to the Air Force Academy to fly jets (who didn’t). Unfortunately, my vision is not 20/20, and I thought my flying days were over before they began.

In college, I started flying r/c airplanes, but before long I became bored and decided that I really wanted to be in the airplane, rather than just standing on the ground watching a model fly around. I looked up flight schools in the phone book and called one that looked good. That afternoon, I took my first flying lesson. I promptly took out a small student loan through school for “living” expenses, and four months later I was a private pilot. I had already decided that I wanted to be a professional pilot, and I immediately began working on my instrument rating. After a short time, however, problems began to crop up: the “living” expenses began to dry up, my parents were not in support of my decision, and I went through a several flight instructors, sometimes a new one with each flight, as they started getting hired off to other flying jobs. My confidence blown, I flew less and less until one day, I didn’t fly again. The year was 1995. I had about 90 flight hours.

Fast forward to January 5, 2004. It was my first day in ATP's 90-day Airline Career Pilot Program. I had just quit a very well-paying, computer career where I had been a director for 5 years, my wife was quite skeptical about this new career move and our sudden demotion into a much lower tax bracket, and I had been in an airplane only a few hours since 1995—about 2 months before when I decided to get current because I really wanted to fly again. The dream of being a pro pilot, however, wouldn’t stay down and it didn’t take long to realize that flying for fun wasn’t going to be enough.

I saw an ad for ATP in the back of a flying magazine in early November. A week later, after getting the oK from my wife, I was at my ATP interview, and within a few more days, I had talked to Jim and set a start date. Two weeks later I gave notice at work and was already well into studying for the writtens.

I finished the program in just over 90 days as high Texas winds delayed my final checkride. My goal from the beginning was to instruct for ATP, and I was offered a position a few weeks later. I began instructing at the Dallas location in mid-June. In November, I attended ATP’s week long Regional Jet Certification Program. On December 29th, 2004, I received a phone call from ExpressJet Airlines and was offered an interview and on February 7, 2005, I began my new career as an airline pilot.