Introduction

Hello,
 I am John Riske, I have been around aviation my entire life. My dad was the director of cargo for Wein Air Alaska when I was born and has been involved in many different aspects of Aviation since.We always had an airplane on our little grass strip behind our house.

 I have followed those footsteps by being involved in everything from flying cargo to owning a flight school, to managing an airport to being a corporate pilot. I love just being around the characters that the aviation world tends to attract. Like I said I have been surrounded by the aviation world my entire life and now that I have kids they have been exposed to it as well. My two year old has had almost an hour of hands on stick time and my 6 month old went for his first airplane ride when he was just a few weeks old.

I am considered a senior, as this is my third attempt at a bachelors degree, this one may finally happen. I am hoping to graduate sometime next year, Depending on the way some things shake out. I do have an associates degree in Aviation Flight Technology from Jackson Community College.

The Question of what I want to be when I grow up comes around quite often, and the answer is I don't really know. I enjoyed being an airport manager, and would love to do that again at an airport the size of Ann Arbor. But I also like flying. So if I have to be specific, I would say that I would be an airport Manager of a midsize airport and have a 135 operation that allowed me to fly. Until I could get the kids out of school and then it is straight to Seaborne Airlines, based in St. Croix and that is where I will stay.

Some of the things that I am really interested in are on the syllabus already. I am very interested in learning more about the Unmanned Systems, because I believe that those are really going to take off in the next decade. I also want to follow more closely the commercial space travel. I was at Oshkosh when they brought the first White Knight and Space Ship 1 after the first civilian launch and was mesmerized by the possibility of commercial space travel.