Hawkins is living his childhood dream.
Right from the age of 15, he knew he would land a job either in financial services or engineering. This was partly because, first, he likes dealing with numbers.
Secondly, he enjoys working in the built environment, a field that is associated with technical matters that require urgent solutions.
To fulfill his childhood dream, and defy his father’s wishes to do medicine, he ended up in engineering.
"My biggest thing is quality. I also owe my quick rise in career to the current teams I have worked with and my entire family."
“I was more of a Maths, Physics, Chemistry kind of person in school,” says the Master’s degree holder in aeronautical engineering from UFA State Aviation Technical University in Russia.
Fast forward, Hawkins is the General Manager at Fahari Aviation, a subsidiary of Kenya Airways (KQ).
The father of two took up his current job in February 2022 after serving as the head of engineering services at the airline between 2018 to 2021. He also worked as the propulsion engineering manager at KQ from 2016 to 2020.
Hawkins previously worked as a technical instructor at the East African School of Aviation between 2009 and 2010.
The department that he leads at Fahari Aviation is the country’s first-ever drone cage currently used for training unmanned aerial vehicle pilots.
Fahari Aviation is tasked with launching and implementing future aviation technologies and is part of the airline’s strategy of contributing to the sustainable development of Africa by championing new dimensions within the industry with the use of drones and unmanned aircraft.
Aspiring drone pilots seeking to train with KQ, part with Sh190,000 for a month’s course to obtain a Remote Pilot Licence.
They have so far managed to train hundreds of aspiring drone pilots from State corporations such as Kenya Revenue Authority.
“My biggest thing is quality. I also owe my quick rise in career to the current teams I have worked with and my entire family,” says Hawkins, who has traveled to all continents except Australia.
Bonface Otieno