One thing I always heard people say, you know,
and I see somebody with success,
but I'd really like to be in their shoes. But most people don't think about it, and I'm willing to walk down the same path that that person had to get to where they're at. Steven McCullough is a seasoned aviation expert, entrepreneur,
and the founder of one marine aircraft maintenance. Drawing from more than four decades of aviation experience, he has committed to delivering exceptional aircraft safety and reliability, while building a business rooted in marine grade integrity. A group in a household without a father figure.
Thankfully, God put this man in my life, and the biggest thing he taught me and he said, "Steve, society doesn't owe you a thing." If you want it, you're going to have to work for it.
“What is your number one like key for success?”
I would say... It's our hope, I'm telling our way. The living your legacy podcast, for those who live, to live a legacy. As it's free, as it is, awesome, awesome, awesome.
Oh, that is sensational, too. Open, shake up, I was the lead. You said, "Oh, it's the podcast, not on the planet." You can live your dream. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode
of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host for today, Jason Tyler, and today I am joined by Mr. Steven McCullum. Welcome to the show, Steve, how you doing? Thank you, glad to be here.
Doing good, doing good. Now, you just finished recording your episode.
“First of all, how you feeling on the other side of it?”
Awesome. Got rid of a little bit of the jitters? Yeah, yeah, definitely did that. What would you say is like the number one thing that you want people to be able to take away from your story?
Probably the ability to overcome adversity, believe in yourself, and not give up. Perseverance, perseverance, being able to be able to tough it out, I love that, I love that. So for the audience member, this is their first time
kind of getting to know you, giving kind of Steve's background. How do I get to the Steve sitting in front of me here today?
Well, I always heard people say, when I see somebody
who would success, boy, I'd really like to be in their shoes. But the first thing you really got to think about, or what most people don't think about is, am I willing to walk down the same path that that person had to get to where they're at?
You're going to have to walk 'em out of it. And first, you got to work long, mile, the mile. It's been a rough road. It's been rough, but it's been extremely rewarding. I've done some phenomenal things in my career.
43 years in the aviation industry. And I haven't been completely around the world, but I've been pretty damn close to it. I think the only place I haven't been is Australia and New Zealand. But when you make it there,
I'm not going to say, it's a matter of when I make it. It's a matter of when you make it there, Sydney's gorgeous. And New Zealand is some of the greatest landscapes I think.
“That's what planet has to offer without a doubt.”
So, nice, you know, started off in New Orleans. You know, young kid growing up, you know, a mother and a grandmother, no father to speak of. And you know, it was a rough road coming up through there. But it's taught me a lot of things.
Perseverance, how to get through certain struggles and just keep moving forward. Now, how do we get to aviation? Where was that passion sort of built up? Well, you know, an interesting thing is the street that I grew up on as a little kid.
There was four of us boys all roughly about the same age within a year of each other. And three out of a four of us went into aviation.
Two of us became aircraft mechanics in the third became an airline pilot.
And to really look back on that, the really wasn't anything that shaped that, that there's almost a accident. Well, you know, a jokingly laugh at probably the only thing I can think of that might have been a subliminal thing is. We grew up outside of New Orleans in a city of Kiner. In a city of Kiner is where the International Airport for New Orleans is located.
And we literally live right under the landing pattern for New Orleans International Airport. So we had two or three dozen airplanes flying over our heads every single day. So I don't know if that was just some sort of subliminal subconscious programming.
You will work on planes.
Yeah, you will be a part of the aviation industry.
“So, so that was interesting, the fact that three of us went into the industry,”
but never discussed it amongst ourselves, you know, like, "Hey, what are you going to do after school at this?"
And that, you know, those kind of things. So it was never any kind of a pre-planned program there. How I ended up in aviation started with in high school, taking the ASFAP test for the military. Me and a bunch of my buddies, you know, the school administrator came over to PA today before or two days before that. The military would be coming to our campus to administer the ASFAP test.
And me and a bunch of my buddies from on the football team decided we wanted to get out of class for half the day. So we'll go out, we'll go, yeah, we'll go hang out on the library for a couple of hours. And, you know, think about taking ASFAP test.
“And so we did, and I really didn't have a pre-planned thought in all of it.”
It just sort of came about when once the ASFAP test results were given to all of the recruiters, they started calling. Well, I had a Marine Corps recruitment office that was right across the street from my high school job when I was in high school. I worked at a Sheridan hotel in Kiner, growing up, and it was a recruiter there. And he'd see me walking to work every day, and I was a pretty good sized kid at the time. I was on a football team in wrestling and bodybuilding and all that other stuff. And he's like, well, I got to get your ass in the Marine Corps, you know, you a big ol' boy, you know, you'd be great in the Marines.
And I said, well, I'm thinking about it, you know, we'll see where it goes.
So two years later, I'm finally, it's my senior year high school took to ASFAP test.
And I had a brother-in-law who was already in the Marines, he'd been in the Marines about four years, but at time, which he had no bearing on my decision to join the Marines. It's just when I finally went in and sat down to speak to the recruiter. We got discussed, and he says, what do you want to do in the Marine Corps? I'm like, I don't know. What do you got to offer?
And he started going down the list of job MLSs that I could qualify based on my ASFAP scores. And when he came across the line, aircraft mechanic is like, like, a light went off a bell went off. And I'm like, well, wait a minute, tell me more about this. And I was like, wait a minute, you mean, you guys will pay me, you'll feed me, you'll house me, and you'll teach me how to become an aircraft mechanic.
Yeah, I'm like, let's explore this deeper.
“And that's a, that's how I kind of came about.”
Now, you know, I've talked to a lot of guys in this chair in these chairs that have been
through the military. And one of the unanimous things that we always end up talking about is
kind of that transition back into civilian living. And what was that transition like for you, and like, for an audience member out there who might be, you know, either about to come back into this civilian world, what's your, what's your sort of advice for that guy? Well, my transition was already pre-planed before I got out of the, or before I left for the Marine Corps. And when I told him in the, in the interview session, I told him, I jokingly tell people this,
but it's the truth. I literally had to kick somebody's ass to get my first civilian aviation job before I ever left for the Marine Corps. Was it a trial by fire? No, I had a real good buddy of mine in high school. He was probably the skroniest kid on campus. We had a campus of about 3,000 students at the time. And he was a year younger to me. And he was a skrony little kid, Troy Arman, great person. I was bullied really bad early on as a young kid. And I, I despise
kids, people that were bullies. And Troy was a prime target for bullies. And somehow I got out, he told somebody I was his big brother one day. And he got across campus. You don't want to mess with Troy because that's Steve McCullus, a little brother. And they left Troy alone for the most part. Well, my senior year of high school, his girlfriend's brother decided he wanted to beat up Troy one day after school. And one thing led to another, I got to the girlfriend's house where Troy was at,
one thing led to another between the brother and I, I ended up beating up him and one of his buddies, knocking them both out. The city police showed up. They put me in the back of a car handcuff, me put me in the back of a squat car. Troy goes up to the, the highest rank in office room on site,
Hands him his driver's license, throw it police officer looks at his driver's...
his Troy arm and he goes, you any relations to Tommy Arman, Troy goes, yeah, that's my dad.
“Cough says, what can I do for you? He said, that's my big brother. You got locked up in the back of”
that car. That cop called the other cop over said, go ahead and let that guy add a back. You're car and just given the paperwork. He goes, why? He goes, that guy's going to be out of jail before you even getting processed in. He goes, seriously. He goes, yeah, Troy goes home that night, calls his dad up, tells his dad what happened. His dad says, you and Steve come to my office tomorrow for lunch. Tell Steve bring all the paperwork with him. So I show up there and give his dad to
paperwork. His dad calls his guy into his office. This guy, Nick, he says, has a paperwork. He says, Nick, make this go away. He says, okay, Nick was a city councilman for the city of Kenner, who worked for Troy's dad. So he had to pull the make all this stuff go away, which he did. So his dad nine and Troy, we got we got to lunch and his dad says, Troy tells me you leave and go in the
“Marine Corps. I said, yeah, sorry. He goes, what are you going to be doing in the Marine Corps?”
I said, aircraft maintenance. He said, when you get back from the Marine Corps, give me a call. You got a job waiting for you. His dad was a part owners of one of the largest aviation companies in the New Orleans area at the time. Ain't it funny how life works out? God has plans.
I'm telling you because like at first, I just wanted to give you to your credit. You're a fantastic
story till it, because as you're as you're going through that, I'm like, I'm seeing it in my head like a movie. I'm like, this could be a really good drama series. But also, as I'm listening, I'm like, it's almost like there's like pre ordained things that are going to happen in your life that are going to lead you. I'm a big, I'm a Christian, big, big on my faith. And I think God just, God doesn't control what you're going to do, but he's just going to pop some things in
your life. You know, to that point, you know, when I was growing up as a little kid, my dad was not an existing in my life. He abandoned my mother and I when I was a little kid. So he was not there. So I grew up in a household without a father figure in the household. It was my mother, my grandmother, and my youngest son, my older sister. I was, I was hell on wheels. I was diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, ESPN, CVS, you know, if they could put a label on me, they did.
I mean, I was, I was just hell on wheels. And I needed a strong male role model in my life. And I'd gotten myself into pretty good amount of trouble by the top age of 10 or whatever, you know, because I didn't, you know, I mean, my mother and grandmother put guardrails up there, but, you know, my grandmother was a, she was a nurse in World War II in the Navy. It's a very strong woman. And thankfully, God put this man in my life. His name is Wayne Heitzman.
He was a neighbor of ours, and he also hymn his family also went to our church. His wife, Ms. Carroll, beautiful people, beautiful family. They had four kids. They had a son and three daughters, and me and my sister were good friends with them. He stepped into my life when I needed it the most. When I needed an answer, when he gave me an answer, when I needed a hug, he gave me a hug. When I needed a lesson, he taught me a lesson. And bigusly, he taught me,
and I say to this day, the one thing he told me, I don't know why, but I've always remembered
some of my entire life. He told me, he says, Steve, society doesn't owe you a thing. If you want it, you're going to have to work for it. And that's all there was to do that. As stuck with me from my life, and I tell him to this day, I truly believe, had he not come into my life when he did. I would have probably ended up in a state penitentiary somewhere. He really had
“a profound and pack on my life. I think that's so important. The influence of a strong,”
positive role model. My whole job is to help people tell their stories. You don't need much help telling your story. You do a great job at it. But my whole job is to help people tell their stories. And one thing that I see in a lot of those stories, one of the narrative through lines, is anybody that succeeded at anything, somewhere along the way, they had a positive role model set in and just give them a nudge. Yeah. Just push them in the right direction. You need to have
that sort of positivity around you. For the viewers out there and guys, if you're still tuned
in at this point first of all, make sure you tune in to Steve's episode, which will be coming
out shortly after this podcast episode of the airs. If you would like to hear more of Steve's story
As well as his fantastic storytelling ability.
your number one key for success? You know, we're here at Inside Success TV. What is your number one
“like key for success? I would say confidence. You got to have confidence in yourself for one thing.”
Don't second-guess yourself. I mean, you know, you're going to make mistakes. That's a given.
You just have to calculate the risk of the mistakes you made and then that you can recover from any mistakes that you made and have the confidence to keep pushing forward. You think about some of the great people, you know, entrepreneurs like Steve jobs and, you know, some of these other gentlemen, I guarantee they've got their, their failure rate is probably a lot higher than their success rate, but we don't hear about, you know, hear about the failures, but the thing is they
had the persistence and the confidence to keep moving forward. You're going to make mistakes in life
“live up to them on them and learn from them. That's the other key. You have to be able to learn from”
them a mistake. You're going to make mistakes. You just need to be able, you need to be teachable to learn from it. I know for me specifically, like I'm, you know, I'm an entrepreneur as well. I've started and failed more businesses than have succeeded and I think for me, I'm heart-headed and there's probably a ton of people out there that are like me that are heart-headed and you're going to
have to learn the hard way, unfortunately. Well, luckily for me, I've never been accused of being
heart-headed. So I just noted that's me. I know me. Yeah, I'm being a little fussy. I'm extremely heart-headed. My wife will tell you that what's her favorite term, that damn marine, you know,
“actually just get another one, but I'm a marine, but she'll tell you straight up, I'm about”
to one of the most stubborn people she's ever known. But, you know, and I'll tell you, you know, back to the ADD ADHD thing, it's interesting. Our pastor at our church, he's also ADHD and what have you. And he said something one time I thought was a very interesting is that ADD ADHD people
we think in a totally different realm than the new poor people who don't, you know. It's a mile
a minute up there. Yeah, you know, so I got to, I told somebody one time, it's like they, you know, they said, you know, do you suffer from ADD ADHD? I'm like, no, I don't suffer from it, but my mother, my wife do. You know, by the way, guys, for those of you that don't have this frame of reference, his wife is in the room with us. We're just not, we're only allowed to speak of her kindly in this day. So, so to that point, you know, I'm, my mind is 20 miles ahead of her, or even some of
some of my employees that work for me as well, you know, my one lead mechanic, ow, I'll be standing in a hangar floor, you know, we're sitting by a workbench or a table, we're looking at something, and he's like, what? He's a, I can just see the look on your face. You got 20 things going through your head right now. What's going on? I'm like, I can't explain it right now. You know, it's like, you know, my wife and I, you know, we've done a lot to our future retirement property in Oklahoma.
I have the ability. I can see everything in my mind, how it needs to be, how it's going to turn out, what it's going to look like, and, and so forth. I don't have the ability to draw a word picture for her, or even sketch out something that, as, as good of a storyteller as I am, I don't have the ability to translate what's going on in my mind, um, citizenship understands or anyone else around me understands. So my dad's a psychologist, and I'm an ADHD as well myself, and one thing that my
dad told me is, uh, when you have ADHD, most people try to problem solve maybe four or five problems in advance, right? You might go four or five problems into the future. With an ADHD brain, you're trying to problem solve not only 17 problems into the future, but also 17 other branches out in different directions, all at the same time. And what ends up happening is you're trying to problem solve so far into the future. Sometimes you're not even present to problem solve the one
that starts. Yeah. You know what I mean? What was fun is my lead guy out. I'll trouble suit a
Problem on an airplane and eventually I figured we figured out, you know, but...
that ends up figuring it out, you know, he's very, uh, acknowledging of the fact that I saw the very
“complicated, difficult, difficult problem. He's like, man, that's a really great fun. I was a”
really great, you know, fix or whatever. And almost like, it's, he's amazed that I was able to solve that problem. And I just look at, I'm not a keep telling. It's like, well, I keep telling I'm not just another pretty face. You know, so, uh, so yeah, I get, um, I get in deep on problems, you know, and solve them. And then that's probably, you know, one thing I really enjoy, just, you know,
figuring out what a problem, what the problem is, the diagnostic, the diagnostic set process of it.
“We recently had an airplane in our shop. It was a very older, much older airplane, probably about a”
30 plus year old airplane. And we had an electrical problem with his air conditioning system that just kept blowing up on us. Uh-huh. And, um, I mean, I was dealing with engineers from text drawn, you know, people with much more deeper experience on this particular aircraft, and they couldn't even figure it out. And, you know, I just kept plugging away. And eventually, we found the problem solved it. And, uh, and the customers extremely happy now. Uh-huh. So that'll do it. Now, as we kind of
“wind down here, I want to just take an opportunity for the viewers out there who, you know, they”
want to get to know more of your story. Where can they find you out on the web, social media, things like that? So, uh, we're actually in the process now of getting all of our, uh, our website up and running. And actually, uh, the other thing is so one marine is my primary company that we've
been running for going on three years now. But I'm also in the process of purchasing a second
aviation company, which is, uh, starlight flight, uh, aerial tours. It's a company I'm purchasing from one of my customers. And, um, we're getting that website up and running. And, uh, they can find us under one marine aircraft maintenance, uh, at an adolescent Texas. And then, uh, starlight flight, uh, aerial tours will also be, uh, we'll have the, well, the current owner of it has it up right now, starlight flights. But when I take possession of it, it'll change over starlight flights
aerial tour. But if they just did aerial tours Dallas, it'll be the only website top right up. Yeah, pop right up. So they can find us pretty easy. Perfect. Perfect. Well, brother, it has been an immense flood. Absolutely. It's getting bless you, your story. Uh, I can't wait to see your episode. I know that, you know, Kofi's a, he's probably somewhere listening to me in the background there. But Kofi's a great interview. And I know you guys probably, you guys must have done a great job with
it. So super excited to see it. Again, guys, this has been another episode of The Living Your Legacy Podcast with my guest Steven McCullough. We will see you guys in the next one.
