How Glidell Came To Be...

Jody Lucas Jody, a native of Paris, France, moved to California in 1978 after completing his master's degree at the University of Science at Paris. Like many in the San Francisco Bay Area, he was almost immediately absorbed by the computer industry. Realizing a life-long dream, Jody began taking flying lessons as soon as he arrived in the U.S. He became a Certified Flight Instructor in less than 3 years, and since then has accumulated more than 2,000 hours of flight as a commercial pilot and as a single-engine flight instructor. He is currently working on his Airline Transport Pilot License. It was in 1988 that Jody first encountered paragliding during one of his visits to France. He immediately fell in love with the sport, and after receiving initial training in the town of Millau, he returned to the states to become one of the first USHGA certified paragliding instructors in the San Francisco Bay Area. He began paragliding instruction in 1990 and has since provided hundreds of people with the wondrous experience of free flying. Jody is certified by USHGA as both an Advanced Instructor and Advanced Tandem Pilot, with over 1200 hours of air time logged. He also enjoys an immaculate safety record since his number one emphasis is on safety and cautious decision-making. Because of his conservative approach, he has had no serious injuries to either himself, tandem passengers, or students, and has never had to deploy his reserve parachute unplanned during his 11 year paragliding career. Jody continues to be involved in all aspects of Glidell's business, but particularly enjoys introducing the joy of free-flying to non-pilots with tandem flights, and to eager students who share the love of the sky.

Juan Laos Tandem Instructor Juan A. Laos joined Glidell in 1997. A San Francisco Bay Area native, Juan has been involved in aviation since 1983 when he began lessons in piloting small aircraft. Always interested in other forms of flight, he began paragliding in 1994 after being given a hang gliding gift certificate by a friend. Ironically, he was not aware of the sport of paragliding, but the school he attended offered instruction in both paragliding and hanggliding. Noting the ease and convenience of paragliding versus hanggliding, Juan opted to learn paragliding. It immediately became his passion and he embraced the sport completely, continuing his paragliding education and becoming an instructor in 1997 and a tandem instructor in 1998. He has been instructing with Glidell non-stop since 1997 and has had thousands of injury free flights, including hundreds of tandem instructional and recreational flights. Juan loves to teach and has a patient enthusiasm which makes learning to fly an easy and safe experience for all Glidell students. "I love flying and I love sharing the sport with others. Watching our students grow and learn as pilots gives me an enormous sense of satisfaction. I strive to make our instructional programs safe, fun, and informative. I am very proud of the fact that none of our students has ever had an accident while under instruction or after they have left our tutelege. I have to admit that I get a bit jealous when I see one of my former students flying better than I do! It also makes me very proud!" Juan's instructional background includes many years as a California certified teacher, soccer coach, track coach, basketball coach and trainer.

 

Glidell Paragliding TEL (925) 963-7802 email: juan.laos@realpvs.com ©website by Barb Cooley, hosted by ijs.