feature at 10 From a prime minister's airborne phone to in-flight connectivity industry leader S T O R Y 46 avionics news * may 2016 B Y D A V E H I G D O N Many companies within the community of avionics makers have a backstory in their storied histories, typically a tale in which now-dominant companies began with a single, simple idea for solving a problem or fulfilling a need of the companies and people operating aircraft - and then growing beyond their origins. You can find these stories in the histories of King Radio and Bendix Corp., today wedded as BendixKing by Honeywell - another avionics giant evolved out of multiple other firms. Ditto for Garmin just more than 25 years ago, when Gary Burrell and Min Kao joined forces to build on their ideas for global-positioning-system receivers and brought to aviation the first hand-sized GPS navigators. So it was for Mark van Berkel. His entry into aviation telecommunications came when, as chief avionics specialist for a Canadian government department, he faced the job of installing an airborne telephone system on the jet of the nation's prime minister. His background in cockpit avionics versed him in the standard fare of the modern cockpit - autopilots, VHF nav and comm radios, ADFs and navigation indicators. The experience taught van Berkel something new, something he liked - and wanted to pursue further. A move to EMS Technologies