Jennifer Draughon is president of Neptune Aviation Services, a Missoula, Montana-based aerial firefighting specialist, fixed base operator (FBO), flight school and maintenance organization. By any standard an unusual job, it is one she arrived at via an unlikely route.
Draughon obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from University of Washington, a Bachelor of Science in Business from the University of Montana, and CPA certification. None of those achievements seem especially relevant to an aviation career that began at Boeing and subsequently brought her to Neptune. Draughon puts her success down to serendipity.
“My story is kind of interesting. My uncle was a private pilot and when I was little, he’d pick my family up in his plane and take us to remote islands for fishing or on other outings. That’s where my love of aviation came from.”
Jennifer Draughon, president at Neptune Aviation Services, with one of the company’s nine BAe 146 aerial firefighting aircraft. Image: Neptune Aviation Services
As an aviation lover who grew up in Seattle, applying for a job at Boeing seemed an obvious thing for Draughon to do. She was accepted into a position in flight-test quality assurance, working at Boeing Field and running engineering test data on several new aircraft.
“I also ran track and cross-country on scholarship for the University of Washington. I graduated in 1992 with a degree in English literature, then continued my running career post-collegiately,” she explains.
Determined to run at the elite level, Draughon left Boeing after 18 months or so; she qualified for the Olympic trials in 1992. “I also moved to Missoula, where Neptune Aviation Services was a big supporter of running locally, so I got to know them. I went back to school too, getting my business degree, with an emphasis on accounting, and later taking the CPA exam.”
Neptune Aviation Services operates the Northstar Jet FBO at Missoula Montana Airport. Image: Neptune Aviation Services
In 1994, the sinuous path of Draughon’s career brought her into Neptune Aviation’s employ. “At that time it was pretty much a start-up aerial firefighting company, flying [Lockheed] P2V Neptunes. We had six aircraft and about a dozen employees. Now we’re more than 220 people, with a large campus in Missoula and nine BAe 146 firefighting aircraft.”
A preserved Neptune Aviation P2V Neptune. The company took its name from the type. Image: Neptune Aviation Services
Draughon agrees there are few women in the aerial firefighting industry but also notes she was the only woman among the engineers at Boeing in the early 1990s.
Firefighting pilots are necessarily experienced aviators before they come to Neptune, from military and commercial backgrounds, including freight. As more women have become pilots in recent years, Neptune is beginning to see them reaching the point in their careers where they have the experience necessary for aerial firefighting.
“We’re working to open the door for them and recently took a female pilot on,” says Draughon. “We train our pilots for the specifics of aerial firefighting. It’s a demanding skillset and people need to have the desire to do it. They love the aviation, and they need to want to help people.”
Neptune Aviation dispatches aircraft wherever and whenever its US Forest Service contract requires. That means crews and engineers could be away from Missoula for days or even weeks at a time, pursuing a flying career that is not without risk and somewhat nomadic.
Neptune Aviation Services is contracted to the US Forest Service. Here one of its BAe 146 jets is in action during 2016. The company just announced its intention to transition onto a fleet of modified Airbus A319 aircraft. Image: Steve Whitby via Neptune Aviation Services
How does Neptune attract skilled people, men and women, into this rather peculiar aviation niche?
Draughon confirms: “They usually find us, because of their desire to help, to save lives. But we do have a recruitment program, especially trying to reach women. We’re starting to engage with the local high school through a work-study program too, showing young people hands-on what we do and what they’ll need in future if they want an aerial firefighting career.
“We also have the FBO and flight school and we see many young people come in, work on the line, get interested, qualify as airline pilots, go away for a while and then come back to us. It’s about showing people what aerial firefighting is and getting the message out there that for the right person, it’s a great career.”
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Featured image credited to Neptune Aviation Services
