Meet Our Faculty
Experience and Knowledge
Faculty in the Aviation program have rich backgrounds in higher education and possess real world experience in the industry.
See the Aviation Department Directory for a full listing of staff and faculty.
Faculty Profiles
Meet just a few of the highly qualified Aviation faculty members at COCC.
James Cagney
Chair of Aviation
Assistant Professor II CIS/CS
Email: jcagney@cocc.edu
Before joining COCC, James worked for years in the industry for Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Fujitsu and NCR. He brings a wealth of real-world experience to his classes. James has served as a technical education consultant managing Cisco's CCNA content, a database consultant for Oracle, technical support manager for HP, a product planner for Fujitsu, and a Software Troubleshooter for NCR.
James earned an M.S. in Software Engineering from Northern Illinois University and an MBA from National University. He has taught at California State University in Long Beach and National University.
Lisa Shipman
Aviation Program Director
Associate Professor I of Aviation
Email: lshipman@cocc.edu
After working in the aviation industry for 25 years, Lisa enjoys sharing her knowledge and experience with students as they train to become professional aviators. In particular, she likes helping students as they explore potential career options in the field of aviation. Early in her career, Lisa owned a flight school and charter service and later went on to fly jet airplanes in the corporate and charter industry for over 20 years before coming to COCC. She has extensive experience with flight instruction and ground instruction at all levels of aviation training and teaches a variety of classes in the Aviation curriculum.
Lisa continues to work part-time in the industry, flying a corporate jet for a local company and serving as a flight instructor at the Bend Airport.
Kamilla Farkas
Assistant Professor I of Aviation
Email: kfarkas2@cocc.edu
Kamilla began her aviation career in Bend, Oregon in 2018 where she is now a flight instructor and commercial charter pilot. Since her journey began, she has flown more than 2,000 hours in fixed wing aircraft, including more than 1,200 hours training students. Kamilla especially loves meeting students where they are and adapting training to meet their educational and flying goals. Students benefit from her real-world experience both as an instructor and a commercial pilot – topics she brings into the classroom to help her students understand the broad nature of successful piloting, inside- and outside the cockpit. Kamilla began her career as an elementary school teacher in her home country of Hungary.
Steve Crowe
Associate Professor I of Aviation
Email: scrowe2@cocc.edu
Steve was interested in flying from a young age, which started with remote control models. The models got bigger and bigger, until 2012 when he could finally sit in it. He earned his Private Pilot Certificate in 2014 and went on to attend COCC's Helicopter program, earning his Private Pilot in Helicopters before switching back to the airplane program. Shortly after graduating from COCC, he was a flight instructor at Leading Edge, building over 1200 hours of flight instruction, and eventually becoming the Assistant Chief. His passion throughout training was instruction, but he wanted to acquire more experience before returning to it. Since then he has logged over 2000 hours in airliners including the CRJ 200, Airbus 320, and Boeing 737; including being a procedure instructor for the CRJ 200. With this he wants to openly share all he has learned, both in and out of the flight deck, bring real world situations into lessons to help prepare students for the environment they'll work in, and to help foster a strong professional foundation as they go through the program.