Instead of a lawyer, Kathryn became a commercial
pilot, flying business jets (she holds commercial multiengine and instrument fixed-wing ratings and also holds a helicopter license). When Alan started West Coast Helicopters, the two were already friends; they married in 1994. In 1998, Alan merged West Coast Helicopters
with Helinet Aviation Services. His reputation as an aerial coordinator and stunt and production pilot for film and TV productions was growing, and the company was expanding into new missions, including helicopter air ambulance work and aircraft management. With the birth of their children, Michaela and
Kyle, Kathryn became less directly involved in the company. After Alan’s death, she didn’t initially plan to be an active owner of Helinet. Tere were all the other details that needed attention, and of course, her children. Besides, Alan had hired a management team three months before the accident. Kathryn initially left it to that team to run the
business. But without Alan to provide continuity, the company he had created was losing focus. He was a visionary, charismatic leader who could run a complex business out of his head. Replacing him as CEO seemed like an impossible task. “After he was gone, it wasn’t my original intent to come
in,” says Kathryn. “But I saw that I needed to do that for Alan’s legacy to continue. He worked so hard for it. It was my commitment to Alan that I was going to keep this place alive. Tat’s why I came in, and that’s why I’m still here.”
Choosing to Lead And so in 2016, about six months after Alan died, Kathryn took over as Helinet’s CEO. Stepping in for her husband wasn’t easy, she says. “Both
my children needed me—it was a difficult time for all of us. But it was good for them to see me come in here to take a stand for their dad.” Keeping up morale was a top priority. “Tese people had
been through a lot. Tey had lost their leader, and then the wife comes in? Tey had families, their careers—it was a scary time for them, where there was a lot of instability.” One reassuring strategy Kathryn employed was
listening. “A few months after I came in, morale was still low, espe-
cially with the pilots,” she says. “So I put a schedule out and said, ‘Look, anybody who wants to meet with me, just sign up.’ And every single one of them did. Some people took 20 minutes, and some took two hours. It took a month to get through them all, but just listening to what they had to say
went a long way. Now there’s a great sense of family in this company, which is something I work very hard to create.” Kathryn understood immediately that Helinet would have
to evolve. “People like Alan don’t come around very often. He was a brilliant man and an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word. Coming in, I knew I couldn’t fill those shoes,” she says. “But I knew I could build a team that could do it.” One of her first moves was to begin to create her team.
She recruited trusted business associates to join a board of advisers who would provide strategic direction for growth. Each board member would bring a unique background that provides Helinet with valuable perspective from its service markets. Current board members include Tomas Norton, a former
director of US Customs and Border Protection’s National Marine Training Center; Arnold Kleiner, former president and general manager of KABC-TV, who had been an early champion of marrying high-definition cinematography and helicopters; and retired US Coast Guard Vice Adm. William “Dean” Lee. “I was in the military, and so I’ve seen a lot of leaders in
my life,” says Lee. “I admire Kathryn so very much because the easy thing to do when her husband—who had largely been running the company while she raised the family—died would have been to sell out and go. She has more than risen to the occasion, and now she’s running this company.” Another recent addition to Kathryn’s team is Sean Cross, Helinet’s president and COO and a retired US Coast Guard
2020 Q2 ROTOR 33
Each month, Helinet raffles off a ride in a helicopter to a staff member. “Some of the people on the office side have never been in a helicopter, yet they work with them every day. Now they can bring in their family and go up on a flight to see what it’s like,” says Kathryn, shown here speaking with Brittany Brown, flight follower for Helinet.
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