Here at jetAVIVA one of our core values is “Be Shockingly Good” and that is exactly how we would describe Mike Simmen, our Vice President of Operations. Mike is a behind the scenes guru implementing extensive improvements to our systems to make everything flow smooth and our lives easier.

Mike grew up on Florida’s Space Coast, where shuttle launches were a regular occurrence. His love for aerospace was fostered at a young age by his grandfather and father who both launched rockets for Vandenberg Airforce Base in California and Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida. He even went to elementary school at Challenger 7, so the love of aerospace was transferred.

Mike brings 10 years of experience in business aviation to jetAVIVA. He was one of the first employees hired into Embraer Executive Jets’ newly-established Melbourne, FL headquarters. Most recently he held the position of Manager of CRM and Customer Experience for Embraer. He helped to develop, implement, and administer an industry-leading CRM platform that integrated departments, improved automation, and informed leadership decisions. Later he incorporated artificial intelligence and big data to help improve and prioritize both marketing and sales processes. Mike also has a passion for customer experience and has found a way to incorporate both the quantitative data with qualitative data to improve the customer’s journey and experience.

When not thinking about data, process improvements and customer experience, Mike likes to slow things down by going on cruises with his wife, Missy. He also can be found working in his shop building drag race cars and rebuilding classic cars. He would like to build an early 1950s chevy truck restomod or an old El Camino next.