PROFILE
Parks College. Luckily for Richard and me, all of our credits transferred.” As a side note – Richard and Diane
have been Married 41 years. It was true love.
AFTER A&P SCHOOL During a summer break from Parks, Haycraft went to work in Peoria with Carlos Shaw at Byerly Aviation as an intern. Haycraft graduated from Parks in December 1975. He had his A&P in his pocket, but unfortunately the job market was terrible. “There were no jobs,” Haycraft says. “I was headed up to Peoria to take a job with UPS to sort boxes for $5.00 an hour. When I got there, I went to the airport to say hi to everyone I knew. I saw Bobby Byerly (Larry & Bobby owned Byerly Aviation) and he asked me if I could change two 310 engines. I told him, ‘Well, yeah!’ He said, ‘I’ll pay you $3.25 an hour. Can you be here Monday?’ I said yes, so I called UPS and told them I wouldn’t be taking the job.” Haycraft was then truly committed
to a career in Aviation. Haycraft worked for Byerly’s in PIA in 1975. In 1976 Haycraft went back to SPI and started working at South Central Aviation, a Cessna dealer in Springfield, IL. As the general aviation market crashed, Haycraft decided to take a job at Air Research/Garrett Aviation in SPI, which had just bought Capitol Aviation. Haycraft worked as a mechanic on night shift working on Mu2s, Merlins, Commanders , Jetstars, Hawkers, Falcons, TPE331 turboprops and TFE731 turbofans. In 1979, wages were $6.00/
hr. The airlines were hiring, and Haycraft thought he’d try to get a job in the airlines. He got a job at Ozark Airlines. “I went from making $6.00/hr. to $13.00/hr. plus flight benefits,” Haycraft says. “I thought it was going to be the ‘cat’s meow.’ I was there around six weeks when the
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flight attendants went out on strike. I was about five days short of being accepted in the Union and being on the picket lines. I was laid off with a lot of frustration.” Haycraft went back to Springfield to go back to work at Air Research/ Garrett Aviation. “I decided then that I wanted to stay in corporate aviation and make a career in it,” Haycraft says. “The pay may have been less, but it seemed pretty solid. If you wanted to work, you could have a job.” Haycraft worked for the company for 25 years until 2002 (the company had gone through several ownership changes). During those years, he progressed from being an A&P mechanic to being a leadman on Falcons to 331 crew chief, then on to crew chief on the Gulfstream line. In the late 80’s, Haycraft made the transition to management when he was selected to run the company’s engine support and airframe accessory shop. “I decided to go into management,” Haycraft says. “I put a tie on, cut my hair and shaved my beard, but not the moustache. That clean cut image didn’t last.”
THE TRANSITION
TO MANAGEMENT Haycraft says that the transition to management went pretty smoothly for him thanks to the company’s proactive management training program. “The good thing about Air Research/Garrett Aviation is they had a great management program,” Haycraft says. “They had formal training. They brought a trainer in and would have all managers down to the supervisor level attend the training. There were regular assessment tests to help determine who would be good fits for management. They even offered tuition reimbursement. Air Research was very good about promoting people from within the company. The training programs helped employees
prepare for the opportunity to move up the career ladder. Air Research/Garrett Aviation was a true training ground for many aviation management professionals in the past four decades, many of which are now nearing retirement. They knew the importance of industry knowledge, employee engagement and a focus on customer support.” In the late 1980’s, Haycraft was
asked to be the company’s Falcon 20-5 retrofit program manager, which became the most successful retrofit program in the company’s history. In the mid to late 90’s, he became the retrofit and service manager, working together with the company’s modifications manager and sales team to help make SPI the largest Falcon service center in the world. In the mid 1990’s, a company bought all the Garrett
facilities and
took them private. “I had other job offers at the time, but decided to stay and make it work,” Haycraft says. “We were a private company. It was very exciting times. We were all totally focused on customer service.” In the early 2000s, Things started to change. The company sold again, so Haycraft started to ponder his future. Haycraft, Jim Swehla and Mike Durst (who worked with Haycraft for years) had thought about the possibility of starting their own aircraft maintenance business. It seemed like the perfect partnership to them. Haycraft and Swehla had maintenance backgrounds. Swehla was head of sales for SPI so he brought that additional sales and marketing experience to the group. Durst was the facility manager at AGS and had an MBA, so he brought the business experience to the group. As chance would have it, In 2001
Haycraft had dinner with Mike Ward. Bob Rasberry and Ward were owners of The Appearance Group, an aircraft detail company based at ICT. The next morning, Ward and Haycraft
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