Anthony Kruckeberg: From Blackhawk helicopter mechanic to director of the aviation program

By Emmett Roman
Staff Reporter

Anthony Kruckeberg began his aviation career when he joined the Army to become a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic at 17 years old.

For the next eight years, he served in the Army on active duty and was deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. He stayed for three years in Bosnia, making it one of his favorite places he has traveled. “I love the culture,” Kruckeberg said. “And I love the people.”

One thing he distinctly remembers about his time in different countries is how proud they were of their culture and how much they enjoyed incorporating American culture into their own. “They're very proud of KFC and they want to offer you KFC, which is ironic,” Kruckeberg laughed. “Everyone is the same around the world. Everybody is uniquely awesome and talented with the same heart and spirit.”

After his first eight years in the Army, Kruckeberg joined the Army National Guard and became a federal technician—making him a federal government employee. There, he continued to work on Blackhawks, but also began to work on Hueys, Cobras, Chinooks and Kiowas.

Then, after being deployed one last time to Bosnia in 2001, Kruckeberg began flight school in 2003. With that new license, he became a maintenance test pilot and eventually was promoted to lead test pilot for the State of Michigan.

Kruckeberg was deployed another four times during his time as a test maintenance pilot. While being deployed, he met his wife, who was a Blackhawk helicopter pilot. While staying in Saudi Arabia, Kruckeberg’s purpose was to teach Saudi Arabians “how to fly and operate like we operate,” Kruckeberg said.

After retiring from the military in 2018, Kruckeberg went to Michigan State University for five years, obtaining two degrees in secondary education for history and social sciences.

By obtaining these degrees, it led him to become the department director for transportation technology at LCC. Coincidentally, upon taking the job, he was reunited with five of his colleagues from the Army.

In his role as director, Kruckeberg oversees the aviation maintenance, automotive maintenance and heavy equipment repair programs. “I’m like a principal if you put it into high school words,” he said. “I manage it, but my people are the magic. They make it all happen. I'm just there to make sure that they have everything they need.”

Kruckeberg schedules his week to ensure that he touches base with each program. “Typically, on Monday, I'll go over to the heavy equipment program and then work from home usually, try to get all the emails for the week,” Kruckeberg said. “Tuesday and Wednesdays, I’m at West Campus doing meetings.” On Thursdays and Fridays, Kruckeberg is usually in Mason, where the aviation program is located, and where he gets to reconnect with those early days of his career. 

Now, he has been at LCC for three years and continues to improve the programs he inherited. For the aviation maintenance students, the tool kit is essential, but the previous kit given to the students was affordable but substandard. “Being one of the top ten programs in the nation, I felt like we had to step up our game a little bit,” Kruckeberg said. To that end, he worked to acquire new, industry-standard tool kits for the students at a steep discount. Employers across the country use this same tool set, “and they can build upon it because it's the first of three sets,” Kruckeberg said. The new tool kits include some key safety features that the prior kits did not. Each kit comes with a foam insert so that you can easily see if a tool is missing or left on an aircraft. The tools are also laser etched with numbers so that it is clear whose kit the tool belongs in. The box also can be rolled around for better accessibility for students.

The aviation maintenance program often has a waitlist, with students waiting for 1-2 years before beginning their classes. “We just need more space,” Kruckeberg said. “Our student to teacher ratio is 25 to one. We don’t have the additional spaces for classrooms or labs, so we have to turn away a lot of kids. We got kids all the way from California that come here, but we don't market it all that well, because we don't want to just turn kids away.”

The two-year program consists of lots of training in order to prepare students for work right out of college. “It's five days a week, six hours a day,” Kruckeberg explained. The program is in a cohort style where the students starting together graduate together. .

Kruckeberg’s advice for students interested in the aviation mechanic career is “make sure that you’re always doing the right thing.” Every student who applies for the program is interviewed directly by him in order to make sure they understand the responsibility of the job “And so, I make sure that they understand that they're not mechanics, they're surgeons. Every time they turn a wrench, someone's life is literally in their hands,” Kruckeberg said.

“It’s not an individual sport,” Kruckeberg emphasized. “We work together. Honesty, integrity and character are the most prominent aspects of what we do. Being able to go to sleep at night knowing you did a good job and you kept a family safe that they can give hugs in the airport too is the most rewarding aspect to the job.”

 

The LCC aviation program hanger. Photo courtesy of Anthony Kruckeberg.