Pratt & Whitney Canada is widely regarded as a great place to work. So it’s no surprise that the children of long-time employees sometimes find themselves walking in their parents’ footsteps. Here, we talk to two employees who have made working at P&WC a family affair.

Kristin Kenny’s earliest memory of Pratt & Whitney Canada is of attending Family Day at the company’s facility in Longueuil, Quebec, when she was seven years old. “I was with my father, and we watched an engine being run in a test cell,” she recalls. “I can still remember the sense of seeing and hearing so much energy and power at work.”

Dave Kenny’s introduction of the company’s technology to his young daughter might just have planted the seed that sent her off to McGill University for an engineering degree and summer jobs at P&WC. She joined the company full time in 1989. For five years, she managed the PT6 Engine Program in Customer Service and is now Director of the company’s Pay-per-Hour programs.

Dave joined P&WC in 1962 and was very much involved in the certification processes for some of the early PT6 engine models. He retired in 1999 as Director, Component Engineering, and now teaches engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Kristin says that her time working on the PT6 engine was a rich and rewarding experience. “There really is no other engine out there like it,” she says. “The PT6 engine is used all around the world on a remarkable number of applications. No other engine can match its versatility and durability.”

During her tenure in the PT6 engine job, Kristin had the opportunity to meet hundreds of customers through conferences and customer days. She says that PT6 operators are a special breed of people. “The customers I met love flying and love the PT6 engine,” she says. “Their passion for what they do was very evident. Keep in mind that many of these operators fly single-engine aircraft, so every time they crawl into the cockpit they are placing great faith in their PT6 engine.”

Kristin had the opportunity to become familiar with most of the PT6 engine models and the aircraft they power. “The ease with which we were able to modernize the engine over the years to maintain its leadership is a testament to the genius of its original modular design,” she says.

As common fans of the engine and the aviation industry in general, it’s a given that father and daughter have lots to talk about when they’re together. “My mother has a rule, though: ‘No engine talk at the dinner table,’” says Kristin. “Otherwise, it would be all P&WC all the time!”