I happen to know him. He was a standout in college, and it helped him earn an internship at DAL. His timing happened to be phenomenal in terms of getting hired at his regional and having the bare minimum of time acceptable to DAL pretty much when the window opened. He did an outstanding job of networking with the right people. When the door opened, he was first in line. One thing I've noticed is that of all the civilians(myself included), that have been hired so far that I personally know, they(we) have all had a very significant internal contact of some sort. Just FYI.