His Career Is Taking Off -- At 19, Eric Ganz Is Already Doing What He Loves, Flying: `It's Always Been Airplanes, Never A Fireman Or Policeman'

KIRKLAND

At this time of year, thousands of students are looking for summer jobs, maybe trying to get something lined up cutting yards or fixing fast food and hoping for something better.

They might take a lesson from Eric Ganz.

At 19, the University of Washington sophomore is likely to be looking down at the world from 40,000 feet in the cockpit of a Learjet as he pilots businesspeople around the country on charter flights.

Ganz acknowledges he's been lucky, but he's quick to add that when opportunity presents itself, it pays to be ready.

He found his passion so early he can't remember when it started.

"It's what I always wanted to do," he says. "It's always been airplanes, never a fireman or policeman."

As a 10-year-old in Kirkland, he was taking flying lessons. In his teens, instead of his mother becoming a "soccer mom," she became an airport mom, driving him to Arlington, Snohomish County, so he could learn to fly.

"I was flying people in gliders before I could drive by myself," he says. In a powered plane, "I soloed on my 16th birthday," the earliest allowable age.

Ganz attributes some of his interest to his parents, Ulrich - a former pilot - and Nona Ganz, and to his grandfather, Heinz Arens, who flew in Seattle in the 1930s and encouraged Ganz to pursue his interest in aviation.

After graduating from Lakeside School in Seattle in 1997, Ganz continued his aviation training, getting his instrument, commercial and multiengine certificates.

By summer of 1998, after his first year at the UW, he was looking for a summer job.

"I must have sent out 500 letters and resumes all over the country. I was just looking for anything, even an office job," as long as it was at an airport.

He hung out at airports and finally landed a job at Boeing Field helping wash and refuel business planes based there.

"A lot of it is just being in the right place at the right time," he says. "Attitude has a lot to do with it . . . and what you put into it. Having luck is only so much of it."

He soon met one business-jet pilot who referred him to another. Before long he was talking to the owner of one of the world's largest business-jet charter firms, based in Los Angeles, who agreed to meet with him for 10 minutes.

"If you don't hear from me by Tuesday, give me a call," Ganz remembers the owner saying. A call came on a Monday.

"He said, `Can you be in L.A. by Wednesday?' " Eric recalled.

Of course. He packed his 1980 Honda and drove to the Van Nuys Airport. "I had no clue as to what I was supposed to do," he says.

He was sent to Dallas for two weeks of training on Learjets, then back to Van Nuys.

"I took a check ride, and the next day, I started flying charters," he says.

Since then, he's been all over, from Alaska to Texas to Mexico.

He's logged 1,400 flight hours, 200 of them on Learjets.

He does his UW assignments wherever he is, and his instructors know of the unusual conditions he faces; when a paper is due, he sends it by e-mail from his laptop.

It's apparent that Ganz has managed to immerse himself in a world that's largely unknown to most 19-year-olds.

As he walks along the ramp where the Learjet is kept, he runs into a gray-haired man wearing jeans, running shoes and a parka.

He introduces him as Dave McKay, another pilot, and later explains that he's vice president of a business-plane charter company.

As the conversation progresses, it becomes clear that Ganz has been offered a job.

He agrees there's excitement in the work, often involving weather, although he is laconic about some of the challenges he's faced - such as having an engine catch fire on a twin-engine piston plane when he was coming back from Hoquiam.

What did he do?

"Landed," he says.

While he admits the money is good - flight pay is $45 an hour - he says he'd be happy to do the work for nothing. One drawback is that he doesn't have much time for movies or a social life.

"Nobody's interested in someone who's always gone," he says, although he does play piano in a jazz band and likes sailing.

Whatever happens, he says, the key ingredient is desire.

"You can make yourself available for opportunities," he says. "My only advice would be to find something you love doing and make a job out of it."

Peyton Whitely's phone message number is 206-464-2259. His e-mail address is: pwhitely@seattletimes.com