Retired as an Air Force Master Sergeant, Pat now owns and operates several business ventures including Lawler Innovations, Inc., Aquila Aviation, OnSITE Drug Testing & Consulting, Guard Guys LLC and The Duluth Flying Club. He is also currently working as an Airline Pilot, Aviation Consultant, Contract Pilot/CFI, and as a Freelance Programmer/Developer.

 

With more than 30 years of aviation experience, including both military and civilian industries, Pat has worked in maintenance, training, safety, administration and management.

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His aviation career began right after high school when he enlisted in the United States Navy as an Aviation Electronics Technician where we maintained the avionics systems aboard the P-3C Orion aircraft. He was also assigned as a Quality Assurance Inspector and earned is his Enlisted Aviation Warfare Specialist designation.

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After his first tour, he was then assigned as an instructor teaching the P3-C avionics systems in both the classroom and on the aircraft. After his time in the Navy, he enlisted in the Minnesota Air National Guard as an F16 Avionics Specialist where he worked as a maintainer, training manager, shift-supervisor, and as Quality Assurance inspector.

 

He possesses several FAA pilot certifications, including Multi-Engine Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) and Multi-Engine Airplane Instructor (MEI). Also, he's a dual-rated Commercial pilot in both airplane (ASEL) and rotorcraft (Helicopter) categories holding instructor (CFI/CFII) ratings in each. He has logged approximately 4,000 hours of flying, of which more than 1,200 hours was as an instructor.

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He is also a certified Platinum Cirrus Standardized Instructor Pilot (CSIP), which he contracts his services to provide expert training in Cirrus aircraft. He is routinely contracted by the Cirrus Aircraft factory to provide transition training to their new owners at the Cirrus Vision Center.

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Pat holds a Masters of Aeronautical Science and a B.S. in Professional Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  He also earned a Professional Pilot A.A.S. from Lake Superior College.  Although his education was focused on Aviation, his specializations were in Management and Human Factors; which have proven to be great assets in many different vocations.

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A passionate programmer self-taught on Xcode and Swift utilizing Storyboards and programmatically developing UX/UI. He has incorporated several different external APIs along with Apple’s built in APIs including Core Data, iCloud Kit, Cocoa Pods, Core Location in iOS development. He currently has two apps published on the Apple App Store.

 

He is also an expert in Microsoft VBA in both Access and Excel - he has written several programs including an aviation maintenance training scheduler, flight training tracking program, and several data parsing programs for integration of enterprise systems.