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Kenneth Cerney, Commercial Pilot, MEPD

Owner/Retired Army and Commercial Helicopter Pilot
Leader-Team Dynamics LLC
Merrill, Wisconsin

Lieutenant Colonel (RET) Ken Cerney enlisted as an Infantryman in the National Guard in 1978 while still a senior in high school. He graduated from college with a degree in biology and was commissioned into the Regular Army. He graduated from the Army rotary wing flight school in 1986 and went on to serve as an Army Aviator, instructor pilot, platoon leader, operations officer, commander, and leadership instructor. Ken finished up his Army career as principal instructor in the Army Reserve’s Pre-Command Course and Chief of Leadership Training for the Army Reserve. He retired after serving 28 years. After retirement he created Leader Team Dynamics to teach leaders and their teams the role personalities play in the dynamics exhibited on a team. Soon after this he accepted a job flying for a hospital in north-central Wisconsin. He recently retired after 16+ years of flying single pilot VFR and dual pilot IFR in 206L1/L4, 407, S76C+, and EC135-P2+/P3H helicopters.

With his background in leadership development, Ken completed his master’s degree in education and became certified in multiple assessments to help individuals work better together. Over the past 12 years he has taken his knowledge of personality strengths and weaknesses and combined it with his experience teaching CRM/AMRM. Seeing a connection between personalities and helicopter crashes, he began focusing primarily on crew/team decision making in times of significant stress, especially in helicopters. He has been teaching safety classes at AMTC and HAI Heli-Expo almost every year since.

Ken regularly engages experts in the psychological type, stress resiliency and team dynamics fields as he looks at helicopter/HAA accident reports for clues into how personalities, hazardous attitudes, and stress can lead to a phenomenon called the Abilene Paradox that can derail good decision making at critical moments.

Presentation(s):

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