Tracy Medve

For over forty years Tracy Medve has been a leader in commercial and business aviation in Canada.

Born in 1957 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to Mike and Joan Medve, aviation was part of her childhood. Her father was a recreational pilot, and Tracy spent many a Sunday flying with him over the surrounding countryside in a Cessna 150. From Prince Albert, she headed to Saskatoon, where she attended the University of Saskatchewan, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1978. In the summers, Tracy served in the Canadian Armed Forces reserves as a Signals officer. She went on to earn her law degree, also om the U of S, in 1982.

The early eighties were a challenging time for young law graduates. Tracy persevered and eventually found an articling position in Yellowknife. Following her call to the NWT, Alberta, and Saskatchewan Bars, she then headed for Regina where she worked as in-house legal counsel for the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation. It was a job, but she longed for something more exciting.

In 1985, she called Albert Ethier, owner of Norcanair and a friend of her father’s, and talked her way into a new job. Tracy was soon working as general legal counsel. Asked to draft a contract to purchase two Fokker 28 Fellowship aircraft from a company in Italy, she was quickly immersed in what proved to be a challenging deal that revealed the complexities of working in aviation. Tracy was hooked. Over the coming years, in addition to aircraft transactions, her work with the company came to encompass other legal transactions, such as the development of an interline feeder agreement with Canadian Airlines and labour relations. She rose through the ranks and, after Norcanair was acquired by the Lethbridge regional carrier Time Air in 1987, she became director of corporate affairs and reported directly to the President, Richard Barton. This role was essentially made up on the fly and came to include a multitude of responsibilities that changed daily. In 1990, at Mr. Barton’s request, Tracy moved to Toronto to work with Ontario Express as Director, Corporate Affairs and Commercial Services.

The late 1980s and early 1990s were turbulent times for aviation in Canada, and especially so for regional operators as bigger carriers jostled for control of the commercial market. By 1991, Time Air was controlled by Rhys Eyton’s (CAHF, 2020) Canadian Airlines International. At the same time Canadian Airlines created a holding company called Canadian Regional Airlines to manage its investments in Time Air, Ontario Express, and Inter-Canadien. Following a two-year assignment at Canadian Partner (operated by Ontario Express), Tracy moved to Calgary in 1992, to work for Canadian Regional Airlines as the Operations Merger Coordinator. A year later, in April of 1993, Canadian Regional Airlines branded these newly merged feeder operations as “Canadian Regional Airlines”.

In 1992, Tracy and her friend and business partner Carmen Loberg went on to co-found C.T. AeroProjects, a Calgary based consulting firm that specialized in assisting investors and operators with managing their air transport assets. They worked with clients across Canada and internationally, in public and private aviation. One firm, NorTerra, a partnership between two Indigenous peoples’ business organizations – the Inuit owned Nunasi Corporation and the Inuvaluit owned Inuvaluit Development Corporation – expressed interest in purchasing Canadian North om Canadian Airlines. With the assistance of C.T. AeroProjects, the deal was completed in 1998.

Through C.T. AeroProjects, in 2004, Tracy was appointed CEO of a new airline, Regional 1, a venture backed by John Binder (CAHF, 2024), which aimed to fly regular passenger service from Red Deer and Lethbridge, to Kelowna, Vancouver, Victoria, and Kamloops. High fuel costs, cutthroat pricing, and lack of local interest combined to stymie its progress, and the airline ended scheduled service in favour of charter work in late 2005.

Tracy joined KF Aerospace in 2013, when she was appointed President of the company first founded by Barry Lapointe (CAHF, 2019) in 1970; in 2021 she was named CEO. Tracy and the KF team were presented with a significant challenge soon after her arrival at KF with the loss of the flying contract with Purolator Courier. This required a significant pivot for the organization, which was thankfully a diversified company already. Despite the significant reduction in flying, under Tracy’s leadership, the company focused on expanding KF’s existing Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul (MRO) and Engineering division to replace the revenues lost om the flying division. KF continues to thrive today, expanding its military pilot training footprint, expanding its flying operations, and maintaining a high profile as a key MRO provider.

Such experience no doubt helped Tracy and her team to manage the fallout om the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through her willingness to play the long game, Tracy focused on working with customers, deferring payments, and investing in converting aircraft from passenger to cargo configurations, a strategy that resulted in the retention of 85% of the company’s skilled staff, and which ensured that it emerged from the pandemic with a strong balance sheet. She has similarly worked to improve the company’s internal operations through the development of an internal continuous improvement department solely focused on enhancing MRO operations in support of KF customers.

Tracy worked equally hard to build out her team, improving governance, succession, and organizational planning. The approach has worked. In addition to being well on its way to meeting the goal of women representing 25% of the company’s workforce by 2025, in the years since she came on board KF Aerospace has grown into one of Canada’s largest and most diverse aerospace companies, employing over 1,200 individuals across the country and providing high-quality services including aircraft maintenance, engineering, pilot training, parts manufacturing, flight operations, and aircraft leasing. Tracy has long recognized that women have a hugely important role to play in the aviation industry, and she firmly believes that we cannot do enough to encourage their participation in an important industry. One of the highlights of her career is knowing that another woman, Shelly DeCaria, now heads Canadian North.

In 2024, Tracy and KF Aerospace achieved a major success with the awarding of the RCAF’s Future Aircrew Training (FAcT) program to SkyAlyne, a partnership between her company and Marc Parent’s (CAHF, 2022) CAE. As the current Board Chair of SkyAlyne, Tracy spearheaded the successful bid, and secured the $11.2 billion, twenty-five-year contract – considered to be the single largest Canadian procurement award in aviation, and which is widely recognized as critical to keeping aviation training within Canada.

In September 2007, Tracy had the opportunity to become the President of Canadian North Airlines. During her time with the airline, which continued until 2012, she helped it to grow, improved its service delivery, and expanded capacity, including increased services in Nunavut and embedding its fly-in services for the construction and natural resources sectors, which helped to strengthen the airline’s reputation as a lifeline for northern communities. This was no small feat given its operating conditions: servicing remote locations, often amidst severe and unpredictable weather, at underfunded and sometimes inferior airport infrastructure. Still, it was a challenging period for Canadian North. The airline faced new and significant competition, first from Air Canada and then from WestJet, particularly on its critical Edmonton to Yellowknife route. Neither of the southern carriers had Canadian North’s mandate of providing regular northern service on smaller less-profitable routes, or a need to provide economic employment opportunities for local communities. The after effects of the 2008 financial crisis also depressed regular tourist travel, as was concern over the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus. Despite such challenges it was an amazing experience for Tracy to work with communities across the arctic to ensure they had safe and reliable air service and that all of their members had an opportunity to work for the airline.

A firm believer in how education represents a chance to reflect and broaden your horizon, Tracy enrolled in the John Molson School of Business’s Global Aviation MBA program at Concordia University in 2006. Part-way through her studies, having accepted the presidency of Canadian North, she then thought long and hard about whether to continue with the MBA. Would it be too much to juggle the responsibilities of heading a company, her young family, and her studies? With encouragement from the programme’s head, Tracy opted to persevere and she spent a great deal of her time travelling between Montreal, Calgary, and Yellowknife. She earned her MBA in 2008.