Ontic has appointed Jonathan Grant as its Ontic chief engineer, creating a new global role that places Grant at the top of the company's technical authority structure. Grant brings a career spanning more than 20 years in aerospace engineering, according to aviationbusinessnews.
What the Ontic Chief Engineer Role Covers
As Ontic's global technical authority, Grant's scope of responsibility is wide-ranging, with both aviationbusinessnews and Travel Radar confirming the appointment in that capacity. According to aviationbusinessnews, his brief covers reliability engineering, obsolescence management, aviation safety and regulatory compliance, and extends to oversight of engineering governance, standards and processes across the company's full product portfolio.
The position is a new one for Ontic, signalling an intent to place senior engineering leadership at the centre of its global operations rather than distributing that authority across individual sites or programmes.
Grant's Career at Boeing
The largest share of Grant's career was spent at Boeing, where Travel Radar reports he joined as a systems engineer in September 2006. He went on to spend 15 years at the company, leading avionics development and certification across commercial aircraft programmes, according to both outlets. Among his Boeing work, he led systems integration on the 737 MAX, Travel Radar notes, which entered commercial service in May 2017.
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The Move to AeroTEC and Then Ontic
Prior to his move to Ontic, Grant held an engineering leadership role at AeroTEC in Seattle, as noted by both aviationbusinessnews and Travel Radar. Travel Radar records that he joined AeroTEC in March 2025 and departed in September of that year, a period of roughly six months before he took up his new role at Ontic.
The brevity of his time at AeroTEC makes the Ontic appointment the more significant move in terms of long-term career direction, though the brief gives no detail on the circumstances of his departure.
What Ontic's Leadership Says
Ontic's chief operating officer, Brian Sartain, explained the thinking behind the hire. "Our customers trust us to keep critical aircraft systems flying for decades," Sartain said. "Jonathan's depth of experience in aerospace engineering, safety and certification makes him the right person to lead our technical authority globally."
Grant, for his part, pointed to the nature of Ontic's work as the draw. "Ontic is part of the foundation that makes that possible," he said, "and solving hard problems is what drives me."
The Bottom Line
For a company whose business centres on the manufacture and supply of licensed parts for in-service and legacy aircraft, placing a Boeing-trained systems engineer with 737 MAX certification experience at the head of global technical authority is a pointed choice. Obsolescence management and regulatory compliance, two of the areas aviationbusinessnews reports Grant will oversee, are increasingly demanding disciplines as fleets age and type certificates grow more complex.
The appointment puts a figure with deep original-equipment experience into a role that is, in essence, about keeping older systems airworthy for as long as operators need them. That combination of pedigree and scope is what Ontic's leadership appears to be betting on.
This article draws on reporting by aviationbusinessnews and Travel Radar.
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