GCAA Director General, Captain Egbert Field, is a ‘Special Person’

Mar 28, 2021 News, Special Person

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With 50 years of exceptional service to the local and regional aviation sectors…

 

By Rehanna Ramsay

Kaieteur News – During the mid-1990’s, the local flag carrier airline, Guyana Airways Corporation (GAC), appointed Lieutenant Colonel, Egbert Field, as the first Guyanese Captain of its Boeing 757 aircraft.
Back then it was a significant feat for Guyana’s aviation sector and indeed a moment worth celebrating. However, as historic as this achievement may be, it is one of several defining moments of Field’s exceptional career in the aviation sector. Kaieteur News recently caught up with the stalwart who has not only made his mark locally but on regional and international aviation fronts in a career which spans 50 years.
Throughout his career, Field has accumulated over 18,000 flight hours and in the process flew and is qualified on a number of aircrafts including, but not limited to, the Beech King Air 200, the Skyvan, Y-12, the Hawker Siddley 748, the Russian made Tupolev 154, the Airbus 320/321, the Boeing 707 and Boeing 757/767.
In May 2019, he was honoured by the Government of Guyana with the Golden Arrow of Achievement Award (A.A.) for long and exceptional service in the field of Aviation as a Military and Commercial Pilot and as an Administrator in Regulatory Aviation.
As an airline pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Field was designated Executive Pilot to three Presidents, over a 13-year period, flying the Heads-of-State and other dignitaries to and from their destinations.

In fact, during his time as a commercial airline pilot, this week’s ‘Special Person’ was dubbed “the singing pilot,” owing to his habit of entertaining his passengers and crew with a few tunes, especially when they were flying during the holiday seasons.
Captain Field also had his unique way of keeping the flight and crew engaged by sharing with them tidbits of historical facts about the various Caribbean destinations as they flew over.
“I just wanted them to have something to take away with them besides a long flight, so I got in the habit of giving my passengers some facts about the Caribbean destinations they were going to,” the retired Lieutenant Colonel said.
While he no longer flies commercial, Captain Field has an equally important job as Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA).

In that capacity, Captain Field has led the charge, taking the regulatory body from ranking at the second to last on the list to holding third place in the entire Caribbean region in terms of standards in keeping with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). He explained that leading the aviation sector during the COVID-19 pandemic has not been an easy task.
“The safety and security of the flying public has always been of paramount importance. To keep people safe during this time takes a lot of planning, focus, and support from the staff as well as stakeholders…” he added.
Despite the challenges, Captain Field credits his ability to remain grounded to his devoted and supportive family circle. He has been married to his wife, Sydney, for more than 46 years.
Together, the couple shares three children, whom Captain Field says are indeed his treasures.
“My wife sacrificed her career so that my children can have the support they needed at home to do well in school. Today they have made us proud; my daughter, Adiola, is an Ophthalmologist attached to the University of the West Indies campus in Jamaica, my son, Egbert, is a Marine Officer in the United States, and my youngest, Ewart, is a pilot, flying for United Express in the US,” disclosed the doting husband and father.

During his interview, Captain Field mentioned several incidences of his life in which he believes he is fortunate to have survived, among them is an earthquake, which took thousands of lives and his battles with two types of cancers in which he successfully completed three cycles of chemotherapy.
To this end, Captain Field said, “life has not always been smooth, but God has always been there to see me through. My wife and children have been extremely supportive; I couldn’t ask for better.”
And though he has had quite a rewarding life, Captain Field is still very invested in serving the sector that literally transformed his life for the better.

EARLY ENCOUNTER
He spoke of his very humble beginnings. A product of Meadow Bank, [Georgetown], Field is the son of a cabinet maker and a housewife.
“My father, Egbert Field Senior, and mother, Agatha Dublin, used whatever little they had to cover the household of six siblings. We had our own kitchen garden and our own chicken coop and we made do with the little we had,” Captain Field said.
He noted that his father nonetheless placed emphasis on ensuring that he and his sibling had a complete education.
“I think my father realized early on that if we were going to escape a life of poverty, it would be through an education… Neither he nor my mother attended secondary school; they were from a different time. So, my father valued education, he would faster buy me a textbook than a shoe or shirt,” Field explained.
Realizing at a young age that his parents were making a sacrifice to educate him and his sibling, Captain Field said he made a conscious decision to be good at school.
“I think I took my education very seriously because of this. My father was the main reason,” he added.
As it is with most youngsters his age, Field also engaged in extra-curricular activities in his leisure. One of his favourite pastimes was visiting an aircraft hangar located a short distance from his home. Field recalled that he was just around eight years old when he became very fond of airplanes.
He noted that at such an impressionable age and coming from a household where owning a bicycle was a luxury, encountering an aircraft was somewhat of a surreal experience.
The 70-year-old, GCAA Director General, spoke with excitement as he recalled what he termed “an encounter with the majestic metal bird.”
He noted that “As a small boy I would listen to hear the sound of the coal pot engines of the amphibious carrier from the distance, and I would run from my home all the way to the Ramp (what is now the Army Coast Guard base) watch it make a landing in the Demerara River…”
Captain Field explained that the aircraft would make a gradual but steady decline, before it landed in the Demerara River and then gradually make its ascend on to a ramp, which was built to accommodate its climb into the hangar.
“I would look and pay keen attention to the captain and his co-pilot, they were White guys dressed in these form-fitting white uniforms that carried strips on the shoulders of their shirt. For me, at that age, they were the closest thing to a god. I had already formed in my mind that this is what I wanted to do,” he added.
But by the time, he was 14 years old, Field said he began to realize that his dream of becoming an aircraft pilot was not one that he could have achieved—since it required special training one which his parents could not afford.
“I had a cousin, Rudy Field-Ridley, who had done well for himself as a bank manager and so I started to gear my mind towards becoming an economist,” Captain Field recalled.

A STROKE OF FORTUNE
However, as if it was by divine occurrence, just as the teenaged Field was now finishing his high school education, the new Guyana government announced opening flight training scholarships.
The young Field quickly grasped the opportunity to study to become a pilot. And at the tender age of 18, Field left his homeland among the first batch of Guyanese students to benefit from the flight training scholarship at the Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. Shortly after he obtained his Commercial Pilot Licence with instrument and multi-engine ratings from the US-based University, Field returned to Guyana and was recruited to the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) as an Officer Cadet.
There, he spent 23 years at the Air Corp, where he served as Officer-in-Charge (fixed wing), training and check pilot and advisor to multiple Chiefs of Staff on aviation matters. His stint in the army was met with its own challenges and adventures.

Lieutenant Colonel Field recalls during those days he was tasked with training several skilled pilots, including Captain, Gerry Gouveia, in the art of jungle flying.
He explained, “That was real bush flying, because in those days we didn’t have the GPS or any fancy navigational system to help us. So, each pilot had to be trained to fly in the jungle.”
Among his notable missions, Captain Field recalled he was one of the pilots who were present at the aftermath of the infamous Jonestown massacre, which claimed close to 1,000 souls.
“I remember flying in the morning and seeing bodies just littered on the airstrip and at the camp, as we flew over I looked down and saw what look like clothes hanging on line to dry but it was actual bodies spread all over the camps. Oh, it was horrific,” he recalled.
Captain Field retired from the GDF with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1996 and he joined GAC where he became the first Guyanese Captain of the GAC Boeing 757 aircraft.
After being trained in the United Kingdom as an Instrument and type rating examiner, he was designated as a check airman for the then Civil Aviation Department in 1992 and was later appointed Chief Pilot/Director of Operations of the succeeding Guyana Airways 2000 Boeing 757 International operation.

LEADING THE REGULATORY BODY
He quickly transitioned to the regulatory side of Aviation, becoming the first Operations Inspector of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority in 2002.

In this position, he continued his work in aviation with the oversight of the aviation industry with inspections of the operators, examinations of pilots, investigation of accidents and incidents, etc. Before departing from the GCAA in 2003, he was responsible for the certification of the eight air operators in the Guyana aviation industry at that time.
Upon request by the Jamaican authorities, Captain Field joined the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA) in 2004 as an operations inspector with responsibility for the oversight of Air Jamaica Limited as its Principal Operations Inspector, he became the Manager, Flight Operations Oversight for the Authority in 2007 before rising to the position of Director, Flight Safety Department of the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA).
It was during this time that Captain Field had what he considers one of the most traumatic experiences of his life – the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Captain Field was among several Regional Heads of the Aviation Sector, who got caught in the chaos that ensued after the earthquake.
He said, “I remember I was in the bus, we had just arrived for the conference, and we were heading to the hotel and we heard what sounded like a loud explosion and there was like dust on the road so I got out of the bus and stood on the road because I thought that a grenade had been thrown but as I stood there, I felt the earth move beneath my feet and I looked up and saw the road just look like it was running along as I could hear the building being shattered behind the walls.”
The GCAA Director General noted that the devastation that followed hours later is something that he would never forget.
“There were so many casualties, dead bodies, and you could hear people who were still trapped inside collapsed building crying for help, but you couldn’t do anything to help them…” he recalled.
After surviving that earthquake, Captain Field recalled having to undergo therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Captain Field counts himself fortunate to have not just survived, but thrived in the aviation sector.
Since returning home to become the Director General of the GCAA in 2016, Captain Field has been leading the development of the local aviation sector.
As the Director General of the GCAA, he sits on the Board of the Caribbean Aviation Safety and Security Oversight System (CASSOS) and is recognized by the ICAO as a certified instructor.
And as a senior GCAA official, he has attended a wealth of courses, lectures, and symposiums at the FAA Academy, International Civil Aviation Organization, National Transportation Safety Board, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore and University of Southern California.
As such, Captain Field remains committed to raising the bar in every area of air operations namely: the accident investigation, audit procedures, enforcement and compliance, approved examiner, air operator certification, safety management systems, evaluation of aviation management systems, personnel licensing, aircraft dispatcher, aviation leaders’ programme in public policy and senior civil aviation authority management.

 

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