Aviation Career

Hello Everybody. Been thinking a lot lately and believe the time has finally come to where I need to move on in my life. For most of my life I have been an entrepreneur consisting of many different areas of business. A year ago I was approached by a corporation who was very interested in purchasing my business and after many sleepless nights trying to decide if this would be a right move or not, it was chosen to sell and go work for the new company.


As time passes I regret more each day that I sold. Unfortunately, they will not consider selling the business back to me. Even though owning your own business is much more stressful and probably twice the work, it is still where I would rather be.


So to my point, I am looking to move back in the entrepreneurship arena and considering a business doing something I am very close to and enjoy working with every day ? Aviation.



The last few months I have been jotting down ideas and thoughts of what this new business could all entail, and what it would not. I do believe some could be a viable option but looking for a different set of ideas that maybe I am completely looking past. So I am asking for some opinions from my fellow forum readers on what might be some additional aviation themed areas I could possibly entertain.


There are however a few things that I am not interested in getting into (yet) ? Aircraft washing, FBO?s (I live in a small town, so not an option anyway), and flight instructing (again small town, very few customers) or the likes.


To give a quick background of myself, I am a college graduate with a Masters in Business Management, with a couple of minors and specialties in E-Commerce and Website Marketing.


Look forward to any and all thoughts you can provide. Many thanks in advance for your time and thoughts.


Brian

Aviation Theme Hotel?

It looks like you live in picturesque area Brian. How about an aviation theme hotel like Jay has in TX (Amelia's Landing)?

Oilfield

Brian,

You're living in a state where personal income has nearly doubled in the past decade. Maybe you could find an aviation slant to the oil revolution occuring in your state but I wouldn't limit your options to "just aviation". Tremendous amount of rapid growth occuring in your State and when that happens, waste and inefficiency abound.

Down here in Texas, one of the most difficult positions to fill in the oilfield is truck drivers. As ridiculous as it sounds, finding someone who can pass a drug test these days for a position that pays +$100,000 annual compensation has proven to be difficult. I'm not suggesting you drive a truck but rather, look to the oilfield and see if there is an area where your skills could build another business.

I agree with Mike. Find out who the big players are in the ND oil boom and start asking questions. Is there a demand for personalized air transport of people and/or equipment to and from the oilfield?

charger81 said:

Brian,

Down here in Texas, one of the most difficult positions to fill in the oilfield is truck drivers. As ridiculous as it sounds, finding someone who can pass a drug test these days for a position that pays +$100,000 annual compensation has proven to be difficult. I'm not suggesting you drive a truck but rather, look to the oilfield and see if there is an area where your skills could build another business.

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"Hey Mav, do you still have the number for that truck driving school?"

I need to look into this

diamond said:

I agree with Mike. Find out who the big players are in the ND oil boom and start asking questions. Is there a demand for personalized air transport of people and/or equipment to and from the oilfield?

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Was just thinking of this at lunch. I think someone could make a good living with a Caravan or King Air (or two or three) shuttling people and materials around Texas and Louisiana drilling and pipeline worksites. When you've got a multi-million dollar drilling rig working or a crew installing pipelines, people will pay a lot to get the right people and parts moved quickly. Back in the day at the petrochem plants, we'd pay a couple hundred dollars to have a valve "hot-shot'd" across town. Today, that might be several thousand dollars to have equipment shipped from Houston to South Texas.

...and then market it to The Discovery Channel as a new reality show, "Roughneck Air."

XOverZero said:

...and then market it to The Discovery Channel as a new reality show, "Roughneck Air."

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...mix of Flying Wild Alaska, Ax Men and Shipping Wars!!!! I might just make a call.

"Best way to make a million dollars in aviation is start with 2 million"

Stick with what you know and are good at. Keep aviation as a hobby.

charger81 said:

Brian,
Down here in Texas, one of the most difficult positions to fill in the oilfield is truck drivers. As ridiculous as it sounds, finding someone who can pass a drug test these days for a position that pays +$100,000 annual compensation has proven to be difficult. I'm not suggesting you drive a truck but rather, look to the oilfield and see if there is an area where your skills could build another business.

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HA! Funny! You believe that myth? Seventy grand or so driving trucks, maybe, but you'll be working a minimum 60 hour work week, days, nights, weekends, holidays, all the time on the roughest roads man can't maintain. Hope you don't have roids, and if you don't, you soon will.

Low Pass said:

Was just thinking of this at lunch. I think someone could make a good living with a Caravan or King Air (or two or three) shuttling people and materials around Texas and Louisiana drilling and pipeline worksites. When you've got a multi-million dollar drilling rig working or a crew installing pipelines, people will pay a lot to get the right people and parts moved quickly. Back in the day at the petrochem plants, we'd pay a couple hundred dollars to have a valve "hot-shot'd" across town. Today, that might be several thousand dollars to have equipment shipped from Houston to South Texas.

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Particularly if you fly helicopters...land next to the drilling site.

artrose said:

HA! Funny! You believe that myth? Seventy grand or so driving trucks, maybe, but you'll be working a minimum 60 hour work week, days, nights, weekends, holidays, all the time on the roughest roads man can't maintain. Hope you don't have roids, and if you don't, you soon will.

Click to expand...

Took this from a newspaper article in the Houston Chronicle, March 21, 2014, "Workforce shortages still challenge energy companies".

"Commercial truck drivers can earn $100,000 per year, including overtime, and more if they have endorsements," said Arleene Loyd, Odessa Chamber of Commerce director of business expansion and retention, "but we also need welders, and people with instrumentation and electrical experience, particularly a licensed electrician or journeyman."

http://www.chron.com/default/article/Workforce-shortages-still-challenge-energy-5337857.php

So, yes....I believe the "myth".

Really appreciate the replies from everybody. I do like the idea of shuffling people, parts, etc around in the oil fields.

This is one that I am going to have to look more into.

When I was in Bismarck in December, and last summer, I rented a 172 from the FBO there to do some bumming around. I recall someone doing some oil field charters in a Cirrus and thought to myself, that would be fun. Although no shortage of challenging weather to deal with there. The airport parking there in KBIS is overflowing with one ton diesel pickups so no doubt a lot if people / parts coming and going from Williston, Dicky and Minot.