Nate and wife Susan with their two daughters Seeing The Light
While still working at his nuclear “day job,” Calvin and his two partners noticed a lack of innovation in aerospace lighting and started AeroLEDs in their spare time. He then decided to fly in to the big Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to test the reaction for his first LED light product. “After seeing fellow aviators again, I quickly came to the conclusion that this was my tribe, my people,” he says. “The culture in aviation is alluring and goes beyond a general love of flying, and that culture drew me back into the industry full time.”
His fellow aviators enthusiastically saw the light at that 2007 show, and Calvin returned the next year with a whopping 12 AeroLEDs products. It’s been a rapid ascent for AeroLEDs since then. One reason is that the traditional companies left an opening in the market that Calvin ran through. “The established players in the industry had become lackadaisical and were not innovating. If you look at the industry before the introduction of AeroLEDs, it was very utilitarian, functional products without design,” he says. “You had all these beautifully designed aircraft
16 Jan/Feb 2023
with exterior lights that looked like warts on a princess. The lights looked awful; they looked like they belonged on an old Ford tractor. There were no sleek features or design elements in the lighting industry; the lights were afterthoughts. So, AeroLEDs raised the standard and set it high from the beginning.”
To emphasize AeroLEDs’ lights are sleeker and brighter, Calvin brands them with names like “SunBeacon” and “Pulsar,” whereas other companies called their lights by generic product alphanumeric designations. Calvin’s lights are now seen on aircraft ranging from experimental types all the way up to tactical fighters. AeroLEDs lighting also is being adopted by the rotorcraft market. Enstrom was the first OEM to install them on newly manufactured aircraft, but many AeroLEDs products are installed on helicopters when aircraft are being upgraded and old lighting is replaced. Calvin says, “We replace old-style lights with AeroLEDs that are multiples of magnitude brighter than the original equipment.” The overt/covert market is key for his company’s helicopter market.
Strike Susan that. AeroLEDs is not just “his”
company, but also belongs equally to his wife Susan, who is the company’s production manager. “She has been an integral, key contributor to the success of the company since its founding,” Calvin says, and then humorously adds, “She’s the face of the company with customers. It’s not uncommon for me to meet a customer or person in the industry who asks if I ‘work for Susan.’ As a matter of fact, yes I do,” he laughs.
Thriver
With the couple working together to build AeroLEDs, Calvin first points out that business does not come first; that position is for family (their two daughters are in college). And surviving that plane crash has given perspective. “The bottom line is, I’m a survivor,” Calvin says. That’s certainly true, but not the whole story. Having built two successful companies from the ground up, with his wife beside him in success number two, and with daughters out of the nest learning to fly on their own, Calvin is more than a survivor, as great as that can be. Bottom line: He’s a thriver.
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