EXECUTIVE WATCH Dale Neubauer
Founding CEO of HeliLadder By Rick Weatherford
Dale Neubauer, founder and CEO of Oregon-based HeliLadder, is rare among mechanics. Well, that’s too narrow a claim. In fact, he’s rare among people. He noticed a real need as a working mechanic: he and his fellow wrench turners were contorting themselves in risky, uncomfortable, and inefficient working conditions, dangling themselves from old-style ladders that hadn’t made a significant step up in half a century. “I thought that it was just ridiculous that maintenance ladders had not improved,” he says. “Nothing had changed, except they were now made out of fiberglass, but it was still the same conventional design they’d used in World War II.”
Now, the common man would have left it at that. He’d have griped about his working conditions until payday and then deposited his paycheck. That’s not Neubauer. He had an idea for a better, safer maintenance platform that would allow helicopter mechanics to work more efficiently and safely. He talked about his idea around the maintenance shop, but he procrastinated until one day when he got called out — literally. Neubauer was an Airbus tech rep in the field, working in Boise, Idaho, supporting the Lakota (UH-72) program. “One day I’m watching a (National) guardsman dangle off a conventional maintenance
ladder. That guardsman then yelled, ‘Hey Neubauer, when you gonna make that new ladder you talk about!’ On my drive back from Boise, I decided it was time to get serious and launch my ladder. I didn’t want the rising generation of mechanics to be forced to work on the same old ladders my peers and I had.” Such decisive commitment is rare.
That fateful decision led to HeliLadder, a stable ladder/ platform that allows for safer and more efficient helicopter maintenance. Neubauer says there are now some 1,400 HeliLadders out in the field, but it hasn’t been a straight climb to success for the entrepreneur mechanic and his invention. There’s a backstory...
Neubauer was born and raised in Iowa as the eighth child out of nine. “I had a great upbringing,” he says. He tried college for a year, but his grades were unimpressive. “I decided that wasn’t a good fit for me.” He then bought a vintage 1960 Harley-Davidson Panhead motorcycle, and that ride carried him to his career. “That old bike required regular maintenance and attention, which started me down the path of acquiring mechanical skills. In my mid-20s, I went to A&P school to refine those skills. So an old motorcycle introduced me to the aviation industry.”
14
Nov/Dec 2022
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