Airline Captain David Frank '82 addresses students

Frank, whose parents both taught at Poly, was a Poly “lifer” with the exception of second grade, when he attended school in France. Frank described himself as “not a poster child” in high school and decided that, upon graduation, he wanted to pursue something outside of college. Frank’s first job landed him at Mt. Waterman working on the ski slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains, followed by a number of years spent as a chef in his brother Ken Frank '75’s French restaurant. “That was my brother’s path,” Frank realized, and he began to look for his own. Finally, after repeatedly watching “The Right Stuff” on VHS, a friend encouraged: If you like airplanes that much, you should go fly them.

Soon after, Frank returned to school, moving to Houston to enroll in an aviation program. Unlike his experience at Poly, the classes weren’t challenging and Frank was very motivated, enthusing, “I got to fly a lot!” While earning several of his professional ratings, he worked driving fuel trucks and at the front desk of the flight school, and eventually became an instructor himself upon passing his flight check. Unfortunately Frank graduated just as a major slump hit the industry, with major airlines bankrupting left and right, so it took a little time for his career to take flight.

In the 1990s, Frank moved to Denver and began flying Lear Jets, piloting everything from chartered business trips to air ambulance evacuations in the rural Northwest. The latter was the most rewarding and difficult work of his career, Frank explained, recounting the highest-pressure situation he experienced. On trip to Wyoming, Frank had to land at a remote, single-runway airport in unfavorable conditions to pick up a pair of premature twins; their only chance to survive was to reach the NICU in Denver that night. In his current commercial work, weather-related delays happen all the time, but as an air ambulance pilot, the urgency was too great. “Those were the types of decisions we had to make.”

Frank now serves as an Airbus A320 series Capt. F9 and simulator instructor for Frontier Airlines. “My office view is great,” he raved, sharing a slideshow of cockpit panoramas on trips to San Diego, Costa Rica, and beyond. Frank also enjoys the interesting people he meets within his field, connecting him to people with really diverse backgrounds. When asked about the benefits of his Poly education, Frank pointed to the development of written and verbal communication skills that match those of college-educated peers. He assured everyone, in particular the girls in the audience, that if you are truly passionate about a career like aviation, you can maintain a work-life balance even when traveling around the world.