Avionics News January 2013 - 32

CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP
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ing the shop, but they never received an offer close to its assessed value. When Bob died in February 2010, Fran said, “I put that person in charge” as general manager. With no documented plan in place, the transition didn’t go smoothly, according to John Dendekker, who assumed the general managership of Carpenter Avionics about a year ago. Succinctly put, he said the new general manager didn’t know what was expected of him, and he didn’t know what to expect in return, and his successor wasn’t well suited to the position. It was a trying time, according to Fran. “This little old grandmother’s been stretched in a lot of directions since Bob left,” Fran said. With help from her daughter, Beth Dass, who works for a Massachusetts software firm and “has a head for business,” the shop recovered from the upset and hired Dendekker, who’s been leading the company’s dozen employees in a strong and steady recovery. Following the plan they created, ultimately, he will become Carpenter’s new owner. Always looking to the future, Jim Cook started thinking about his successor when he founded Palm Beach Avionics in 1978. “It’s difficult to sell a small avionics shop, because so much depends on the people involved. I just finished selling my busi32

ness to my long-time employee, Stacey Jordan,” he said in October 2012. Actually, Jordan, who’s been with the company for 34 years, already owned a third of the shop, according to Cook. “Throughout the years, I gave him stock in the company without him paying for it, so I gradually brought him in as a partner.” They started the process of transferring the remaining twothirds of the business three years ago. “We used the same lawyer and accountant,” Cook explained, adding that competing attorneys often become adversarial. “From the beginning, we felt if it wasn’t a good deal for both of us, it wasn’t a good deal for either of us.” The deal states that Cook, for the next two years, will give Jordan “up to 20 hours of assistance a week, so it makes an easy transition for him,” Cook explained. In return, “I have access to all the tools and inventory as if I was an owner; I simply pay him cost for anything I need to use. I love airplanes and avionics, and I don’t ever want to quit being around them and working on them. So I got what I wanted, the ability to come back to the airport to play with my own airplanes and my own stuff.” This is perhaps the option often overlooked in many ownership transition plans, the ability to tailor them to each of the participant’s desires. At Palm Beach Avionics, “I was real happy with the way we did it,” Cook said. q

POINT OF COMMUNICATION
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treat our business as we should be treated, and repair shops must do a better job explaining long-term product support expectations to customers when they are making buying decisions. So what do we have to look forward to in 2013? We have hope – after all, humans are a hopeful lot. We can be hopeful that things will be better; hopeful we will pull together in the same direction; and hopeful that, as an industry, we can be heard by regulators around the world. But it takes all of us continuing to speak, push and have conversations about what we want our future to be. Last fall, I attended the NBAA Annual Meeting and Convention in Orlando, Fla., and it appeared attendance was down. I hope this isn’t a statement of complacency, apathy or hopelessness. Therefore, I continue to challenge everyone to attend industry functions and conduct meetings with strategic conversations that will move our vital worldwide industry forward. One such opportunity to engage in these conversations is just around the corner, and I look forward to seeing each of you at the 56th annual AEA International Convention & Trade Show, March 25-28, in Las Vegas, Nev. q

GREG VAIL Chairman, AEA board of directors Flightstar Corp., Savoy, Ill.

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Avionics News January 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News January 2013