CHEYENNE — Matt Goertz — son of Gregor and Cindy Goertz and husband of Kim (Benton) with three sons — graduated from Wheatland High School in 2000. After completing an associate degree in education, he contemplated what to do.
“I knew I was not ready to become an elementary teacher and was trying to figure out what to do with my life,” Goertz said.
He had always wanted to fly, but because he is color blind he could not fly helicopters in the military.
“I looked for a different way to make it happen,” Goertz said.
After finishing flight school in Long Beach, California, Goertz became an instructor at that school. With a desire to return to the Rocky Mountain area, he took a job as an instructor in Denver. After a few months he accepted a job as a copilot for a larger helicopter company flying crew changes 30-200 miles to and from offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. However, even after upgrading to pilot-in-command, he was ready for something else.
“I decided that flying over the water was not something I enjoyed (not a big fan of water),” Goertz said.
He went from over water to over a big canyon — the Grand Canyon — where he flew tours off the South Rim in Arizona. After finishing the tourist season, Goertz stayed on with the company to do animal surveys and animal captures, then eventually began flying fires. By this time he had married so he wanted to be closer to home. After completing three years with this company, he came to Trans Aero Helicopters, of Cheyenne, where he did fire work, seismic exploration, external load, etc.
“I enjoyed working fires and external load work because to me it is a way of working the machine that not everyone gets to do and I can always challenge myself,” Goertz said.
He has continued with Trans Aero since 2010. Beginning as a line pilot, then check pilot, assistant chief pilot, chief pilot and now the director of operations (in charge of all aircraft operations). The company has 14 aircraft in air medical, fire, seismic, mineral exploration, heli ski (dropping skiers into the backcountry) and charter operations throughout the U.S.
“Most of my time is ‘flying the desk’ but when I fly I usually am in the AS350 Astar or UH-1 ‘Huey,’ which was used in Vietnam,” Goertz said.
As for interesting experiences, he listed hanging rock slide netting along Interstate 70 in Colorado with a 150-foot-long line.
“I dropped a load and the hook got entangled in existing netting,” Goertz said. “As I started to fly away, the line jerked tight and the aircraft jerked violently. In this kind of a job the doors are usually removed and the aircraft jerked so hard that I felt I was going to be thrown out. I was able to hit the emergency release and drop the line to land safely but was very shook up. I had bruises from the seatbelt. I had gotten complacent and was not paying attention as I should have been.”
He shared another experience from his flying tourist days, the same route 15 times a day. Monotony can set in.
“During a tour a little old lady from the UK was next to me … She broke down and started crying and when I asked what was wrong she said that her husband had passed away and his dream had always been to go to the Grand Canyon,” Goertz said. “She and her daughter had decided to come see it. It made me feel good to be able to help someone at that moment in her life. It helped me understand that in that job things may seem routine but for many it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
In Montana, he hauled a hiker with a broken leg from a 12,500-foot-high mountain in a difficult area employing a technique called sort-haul. The injured is suspended from a 200-foot line from the bottom of the helicopter. The rescuers climbed to the patient and put him in a screamer suit (because screaming is what tends to happen when people are flown beneath a helicopter for the first time).
“I took one of the rescuers and the patient a few miles on the end of the line to a lower altitude for the medical helicopter (that was not able to go to the altitude of the injured),” Goertz said. “I was able to set the injured hiker on the medical helicopter stretcher without him having to touch the ground.”
Goertz returned after the other crew member and the hiker’s father.
Goertz concluded by telling high school students to grab opportunities that come along.
“Things may not work out but at least you gave it a chance. Don’t be crazy and throw caution to the wind but take some chances; you never know where you will end up,” he said. “When I was in high school I would never imagined I would be where I am.”
