Avionics News September 2014 - 32

TGH AVIATION

Continued from page 30

all fit with what we were doing, and we
got FAA ratings on the whole lot of it,"
he said, explaining that it expanded its
product base individually but also chronologically, as in the instrument techs are
prepared for almost any instrument regardless of its age.
Around the same time, 12-year-old
Zach, the younger of Oxley's two sons,
started working part time at TGH.
"He'd come in and do a lot of stuff like
painting instruments after they were
overhauled," Anderson said. "He started on the bench with the basics, and
now (at 32) he's our senior technician
in the fuel flow lab. During the past
year, he's been working with me learning the financial and management side
of the company."

Anderson's youngest daughter, Kim,
also 32, works for TGH. She dedicates
her time to accounting and TGH's community projects such as the Navy League,
and, as needed, the company's national
affiliations with industry trade organizations like the Aircraft Electronics Association and several others. "We're also
the largest contributor in Placer County
to the Marine Corps annual Toys for Tots
campaign, and we support the local Rotary and Boys & Girls Clubs," Anderson
continued. In their own way, each affiliation is the company's way of giving back
to its community and the general aviation, commercial and military entities,
including NATO, that are the source of
its business. Its current local fundraising
project is to erect a statue by well-known
sculptor Doug Van Howd of famed
World War II ace Col. Bud Anderson,
both of whom are Auburn residents.

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Several other members of the extended Oxley-Anderson family work for
TGH. For example, Anderson's wife,
Ann, has been the repair station manager
since 1994. She focuses her efforts on
the FAA paperwork, which is signed off
by the company's six inspectors. "Now
she's more into playing grandma" to
their two young members of the next
generation, said Anderson, adding that
she's training people to take her place.
No family member's succession to
company leadership is assured or guaranteed, but as it is for all of the company's 40 employees, it is an opportunity
they can work toward. The members of
the two families are under no pressure to
work for the company, but they are all
connected to it. A privately held S corporation, the Oxley Family Trust and the
Richard and Ann Anderson Family Trust
hold all of its shares.
Holding all of the company assets in
trust provides some tax benefits over a
will, according to Anderson, but he and
Oxley decided on the trust option for
more compassionate reasons. In planning for the future, they faced an oftenavoided question head on: "What's going to happen to the company and our
families once Emery and I pass on?" The
trusts maintain it for the succeeding generations.
Emery had an accident and was hospitalized during the reporting of this
story, and his son, Zach, was at his bedside, said Anderson, because "family is
more important than this business." He
reported later that "Emery is doing well
and will be with us for quite a while yet."
As a business, TGH exists to make
a profit, according to Anderson, and it
achieves this by nurturing the founder's
guiding principle: Provide a quality
product at a reasonable price, and customers will come back. "But profit is not
our overriding motivation," he continued. "The other creed we live by goes
back to the founder, Emery "Claude"
Oxley: Always be a nice person to people, because that gets more business than
anything else." q

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Avionics News September 2014

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