PROFILE
PAUL FOURNET AIR SERVICES Delahoussaye moved back to Louisiana after graduating from Spartan and landed a job at Paul Fournet Air Service (PFAS) where his brother was working. He spent 23 years at PFAS, working in various jobs with increasing responsibili- ties including mechanic, shop foreman, chief inspector and even managed a paint facility. He also helped PFAS open up a turbine shop. While at PFAS, Delahoussaye’s older brother was killed in a plane crash in 1971. “My brother was my boss at the time,” Delahoussaye shares. “He was the vice president of maintenance for the company. I took his death very hard” While working at PFAS, Delahoussaye landed his fi rst management job. We asked him how the transition from mechanic to manager was. “There is an unwritten rule in the industry that says if you are going to manage people, you shouldn’t be their best friend,” Delahoussaye says. “But I did become their friend, and it didn’t seem to hurt my career.” During that time frame, Delahoussaye was commissioned as a Colonel in the Confederate Air Force, and in a short time took over the maintenance management of the Cajun Wing.
MOVING TO TEXAS After 23 years at PFAS, Delahoussaye felt it was time for a change. He wanted to specialize in engines, and decided to move to Texas. He landed a job with Aviall in its PT6 division. Delahoussaye spent nine years at the company, and witnessed three diff erent ownership transitions – from Aviall to Ryder Aviall and eventually Dallas Airmotive. He served as PT6 product support manager, and eventually accepted a position at Love Field where he became the director of Terminal Services and Facilities.
06 2014 8
SALES
Delahoussaye tells us that during his tenure at Dallas Airmotive, he felt he had the skills to be successful in sales and marketing. “I listened a lot to the people around me,” he says. “They all said the same thing – ‘Patrick can walk into a room and within 10 minutes he will know everyone.” The opportunity to get into sales came when he was
approached by John Willis at United Beechcraft to do technical sales for the company. “This was the beginning of my technical sales carrer,” Delahoussaye tells D.O.M. magazine. “People didn’t have a lot of that going on. I started traveling and covering all of United Beechcraft’s bases in the Southeast, mostly in the Dallas, Houston and San Antonio areas.”
DOING BUSINESS ON THE GREENS A year later, while Delahoussaye was attending an NBAA convention in Atlanta, he was invited to play golf with Kurt Herwald, president of Stevens Aviation. During that round of golf, Herwald off ered Delahoussaye a sales job in Greenville, SC. He accepted the off er and moved the family to Greenville. 10 months later, Delahoussaye accepted a position as general manager of Stevens Aviation’s FBO in Nashville, TN. He says that although this decision was diffi cult one, it was the right one to make.
THE MOVE TO NASHVILLE Delahoussaye and his family moved to Brentwood, TN, a suburs of Nashville, where he lives and works out of his home offi ce to this day. He left Stevens after fi ve years and did technical sales for Atlantic Aviation for a few years. He has worked in technical sales for various companies since then including Embraer, Atlantic Aero,
J.S.S.I., Flight Time
DOMmagazine Photo by Ladak Productions Photography (
www.ladakproductions.com)
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