About the Pilots

For the last nine years, my life has been entirely consumed with business. I started my first and most successful business, United Bank Card, nine years ago when I was just sixteen. Under my leadership, United Bank Card has achieved a variety of notable accolades, including being listed by Inc. Magazine as one of the 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in the U.S. for the last three consecutive years. United Bank Card has grown from a small two man business, operating from my parents’ basement, to become one of the largest payment processors in the nation, with over 8 billion dollars in credit card processing volume and more than 100,000 clients.

In addition to my life’s love of business, I have also held a deep passion for aviation and aerospace. For the last two years, I have made aviation my exclusive hobby. I fly as much as possible; it has actually become a form of therapy when I am away from the office.

I have tested my piloting abilities in some of the most adverse weather and conditions available and I have complete confidence in my team and the aircraft we have selected to make this record-breaking journey around the world. Although this trip is certainly a significant undertaking, I believe it is only the first of many great adventures. Our achievements in the air will bring a satisfaction that will only be eclipsed by the awareness we hope to create for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and their noble mission.

I started flying on my third birthday. My father would take me for rides in a Stearman every year until I decided to start flying myself. During my summer break from Palisades High School one year I decided I wanted to work at a local airport as a line boy.

During my time at that airport (Van Sant) I hooked up gliders and watched them go off, and I would have to say that really made me think about a possible career in aviation. I started taking lessons, and next thing you know I'm soloing on my sixteenth birthday.

It wasn't until 2004 that I really got into flying as a career. It took a lot of time and hard work but I ended up with a career that makes me very proud. Everyone always said that I would follow in my father's footsteps, and thankfully I did.

My entire life has been spent in planes. When I was six years old I was sitting on my father’s lap in small trainers flying with him. He was an airline pilot and a flight instructor and eventually taught me a lot of what I know.

I liked it so much that by 17 I had earned my private pilot’s license. By 19 I was a certified flight instructor for single and multi-engine airplanes teaching people from the very basics through more advanced and complicated airplanes.

After years of instructing I became a corporate pilot for United Bank Card, a credit card processor in New Jersey, and have worked with them for years. I’ve built experience both professionally and personally, loving flying more and more each day.