The Inside Word on the Future of Aviation:
Bombardier's Bill Goings

October 23, 2009

With over 30 years of experience in aircraft interiors, Bill has the inside scoop on what it takes to create the business jet cabin of the future. Bill’s career has taken him from being Lead Design at Cessna where he was also supervisor of Mock-up Development, to the position of Lead Supervisor of Interior Engineering at Bombardier Learjet to Vice-President of Hiller Incorporated and then back to Bombardier where he is currently Design Technical Lead - Interior Specialist for the Learjet 85 program.

Making Dreams Come True

Taking an idea and making it come to life is what drives Bill. Which explains why he is the ideal person to lead the design implementation of the Learjet 85 interior. Bill’s roles and responsibilities include coordinating with Design Q, the design agency Bombardier has chosen for the Learjet 85 interior. Together with his group, he takes Design Q’s vision as well as feedback from customer focus groups, and stays true to those designs as well as the desires of the customers. As Bill explains, it’s all about creating the “wow” factor. “We started this program with a clean canvas, the word “wow” was our Learjet motto, said Bill. “What we wanted was a wow factor for the Learjet 85 interior. And it’s worked. One time I was sitting inside the Learjet 85 mock-up with Ralph Acs, the VP of the program, waiting for a customer to arrive and he asked me: ”Bill, how do you sell this interior?” and I said “You don’t, it sells itself. You watch – the word that comes out of the customer’s mouth when they walk into this mock-up is the word ‘wow’.”

Being Creative in the Air and on the Ground

You might think that with the amount of work that goes into creating the Learjet 85 interior, Bill would want a little downtime while at home. Not so with Bill. His stress relief is designing and building motorcycles to his same high level of quality. “That’s my relaxation, spending time in my shop, designing and building motorcycles” said Bill. “We’ve probably built half a dozen, and we sell them. It is a family project and the kids are involved in it. It teaches them how to use their hands, how to take criticism, and what work’s all about.”

Always Going Further

At Bombardier, Bill works with the group known as Work Package 4 Interior Design. It’s a group that he feels is one of the best in Bombardier due to the passion that everyone in the team has about the Learjet 85. Redefining the midsize business jet interior is a challenging task, but it’s a challenge Bill and the team are up to. “I want to be the best that I can be,” said Bill. “It’s about the pursuit of perfection. There are always ways of making it better. So that pursuit of trying to find a way to manufacture products to a higher level of quality is what drives me. Teaching people that there are other ways out there to do what we want and still keep the best quality of interior in the aircraft industry, that’s my motivation.”

And if Bill could choose an interior for a personal jet, what would it look like? “The Learjet 85 – I’m dead serious, said Bill. “That’s how state-of-the-art this aircraft is.”