Congratulations – CFI Award 2023
Guelph, ON - January 2 2024
Aviation Solutions would like to extend our congratulations to Flight Instructor Laurie Mahar of MFC Training on receiving the 2023 Chief Flight Instructor’s Award. This national award is presented annually to recognize outstanding flight training educators who have displayed superior professionalism, skill, and dedication. The award recognizes those who contribute in a positive way to Aviation Solutions’ Flight Instructor Refresher Course (FIRC), their schools, students, colleagues, the aviation community, and industry at large. Laurie was selected from the over 150 flight instructors who attended an Aviation Solutions FIRC in 2023.
Laurie’s high performance on the course comes as no surprise, given her extensive flight training background. She holds a Class 1 flight instructor rating, as well as a PE authority. Her instructional experience spans from ab-initio to multi-IFR, though the bulk of her time now is spent supervising, training, and mentoring her fellow instructors at MFC.
In her varied roles over the years, Laurie has contributed as an assistant CFI, safety officer, technical writer, and manager in multiple capacities. In order to keep her skills top-notch, Laurie regularly participates in professional development courses - everything from Occupational Health and Safety to Safety Management Systems and auditing.
Beyond her professional duties, Laurie has also been active in the aviation community through the Air Cadet program and Women in Aviation events.
“Laurie has attended a few FIRCs over the years” noted the Award Chair, Mike Schuster. “Both in-person and virtually, Laurie is always a ready and willing participant. She’s always contributing to the discussion at hand, and helping out newer instructors on-course with her experience and wisdom.”
“I’m very honoured!” Laurie replied when notified of the award. “And I enjoy attending [the course] every time.”
Laurie will be receiving a complimentary FIRC for her next rating renewal. In the meantime though, she will be keeping busy managing MFC’s groundschool curriculum and flight syllabus, overseeing flight instructor inputs to the QA and SMS systems, and continuing to build effective and efficient lessons through data collection and instructor supervision duties. “I’ve been with MFC Training for 20 years, and even though we have a great training program and a great team, it’s always about looking for ways to improve” noted Laurie.
Aviation Solutions is proud to recognize and promote quality flight instruction and professional flight instructors through this award. Past recipients can be found on the Aviation Solutions website.