BOB SUGGS Creator of the helicopter offshore transport and support sector.


Before he helped found Petroleum Helicopters Inc. (PHI) in 1949, Robert L. “Bob” Suggs already knew a lot about the oil business. He had earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1933 and then spent four


years working as a geophysicist for Humble Oil and Refining Co. in East Asia, searching for oil. Suggs returned to East Asia during World War II,


serving with the US Army Air Corps as a colonel. In the war’s late years, he was assistant chief of staff of the China Burma India Teater’s Eastern Air Command, where he undoubtedly learned about the first Sikorsky R-4 rescues flown in Myanmar, then known as Burma. After the war, in 1946, Suggs partnered with New


Orleans native and lawyer Maurice Bayon to form Offshore Navigation Inc. Te company provided radio-positioning services to petroleum industry companies from a houseboat. Jack Lee, president of a


seismographic company and an early convert to the technology, cofounded PHI with Suggs and Bayon in Lafayette, Louisiana, three years later with three Bell 47 helicopters. Over the next 40 years,


with Suggs as CEO, PHI helped create the commercial rotary-wing transportation sector. Te company was the


144ROTOR SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE


first commercial helicopter operator authorized by the FAA to conduct an instrument flight rules (IFR) off-airways flight in the Gulf of Mexico. PHI pioneered the concept of basing helicopters offshore, becoming the first designer and builder of helicopter refueling facilities on offshore rigs. Te company also established offshore flight-route


structures, communications and weather services, and navigation techniques and procedures. Along the way, it became a critical evaluator of new helicopter models, technologies, and procedures for airframe, engine, and component OEMs. Suggs, who in 1961 served as president of HAI,


then known as the Helicopter Association of America, died on Sep. 4, 1989, at age 77. At the time, PHI was the largest, most experienced commercial helicopter operator in the world. Its more than 2,300 employees flew 300-plus helicopters in offshore support, air medical transportation, and other missions, from Alaska to Zaire. His wife, Carroll Suggs, became PHI’s chair and


majority shareholder after his death. In 2008, she sold her family’s stake to Louisiana businessman Al Gonsoulin. PHI continues to be a global provider of helicopter services.


PHI S-76C++ | HAI/Mark Bennett Photo


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