Craig Varnum

Craig Varnum serves as an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner in Concord, North Carolina, where he conducts Private, Commercial, and Instrument Rating checkrides in helicopters. He has also built a long career in law enforcement with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which he joined as a patrol officer around 2005. Varnum supervised the department's Domestic Violence Unit from 2017 to 2019, implementing county-wide investigative reforms that earned him the Mecklenburg County Bar's 2021 Liberty Bell Award. Following that assignment, he transitioned to the agency's Aviation Unit as a pilot and unit commander. In this role, Varnum pilots the department's Bell helicopters, known locally as Snoopy, and manages aerial operations such as thermal mapping, searchlights, and criminal tracking throughout the Charlotte metropolitan area.