Diversions
CGA Takes Flight
FROM: JAN-FEB 2003 ISSUE
Bruce Penich, CGA, was having a beer with his friend Giovanni Terzi, CGA, after their strategic planning exam, when the bug to skydive took hold. Terzi was recounting his rather harrowing experience, but Penich was still intrigued. He took a year to psych himself up, but finally, in August of 2000, he signed up for the five-hour course that would lead him to the precarious perch under the wing of a Cessna 205 airplane over the Vancouver suburb of Pitt Meadows, B.C.
Penich describes that first jump in a single word: "scary." "I forgot most of what I was supposed to do in the first few seconds of the jump, until I heard my instructor's voice on the walkie talkie," he says with a laugh.
Despite this less than auspicious beginning, Penich went back for a second jump the same day, and three more the next. He was hooked. Now, the 28-year-old senior accountant in public practice has his B-COP (intermediate certificate of proficiency) skydiving licence, meaning he has the skills and know-how to skydive recreationally on his own or in group formations.
From April to September, Penich goes to the dropzone at least one day a weekend, and has now done 135 jumps in total. "It's an addiction," he admits. "The adrenalin rush is incredible — after you get over the fear." The born and bred Vancouverite loves the thrill of being in control of his flight. "You're like a bird. You can control where you want to go and can take in the scenery," he says, adding that the sight of the ground rushing toward him at "terminal velocity" (120 miles per hour is about the slowest you could go) no longer puts the fear of death in him.
So is this CGA, who received his designation in May 2001, generally a thrill seeker? "No," he says adamantly. "This is the only wild and crazy thing I do. The rest of the time I'm an accountant," he quips.
And when people ask him incredulously why he would jump out of a perfectly good airplane, he has an answer ready for them, taken from a bumper sticker emblazoned on the ceiling inside the plane: "You'll never understand if you don't try it."
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