Aviv Tzur, Greater Miami Aviation Association

hello everyone welcome to the Oyster Aero PearlCast I am Jeff Jerge and we have industry Legend Aviv Tzur with us today how are you Aviv I'm great Jeff thanks for having me sure sure so um as you know we talk a little bit about the people on our podcast so um you know a lot of people know you so can you just walk us through you know your career um just kind of a history on that absolutely I always like to say that I I got to Aviation uh by chance and once you're in aviation you know that jet fuel in your veins that's it it's you're done uh once in aviation always in aviation so I I uh uh worked full-time and I went to uh college at night in New York for 5 years and then when we decided to start a family moved to uh South Florida and I got my fav job out of um an ad in the newspaper and I got hired as a a general manager of uh the company that did the custodial and maintenance work for Miami International Airport so here I am a 30-year-old running a company with 500 people and I really had to you know learn every from scratch because I knew nothing about custodial work work um I knew nothing about maintenance at airports so every day I walked uh 10 miles up and down the concourses I hired uh industrial Engineers that studied um you know uh traffic of people at certain bathrooms that did the Staffing accordingly I mean I overwhelmed Miami International Airport staff with all kind of charts and uh but I mean it made the operation better so after a year there I was hired by a guy who was later my

mentor uh yel saraf at a professional modification Services which is everybody knew as PMs and PMs did Heavy maintenance and we did 55 cargo conversions from Passenger to um from Passenger to Cargo yeah and uh so quickly learned uh the job there as well and again uh I I did AR myself I did AP posting invoices I went and worked in the stock room I worked at purchasing I learned everything that was under me from the ground up and this is a lesson I want to give other people as well including friends of mine that you know have kids that are coming into the business if you want to do it right start them at the sto room um and so you know learn everything that uh had to be learn we did some beautiful things there um I bought into the company in 97 in '98 we sold to a private Equity Group I became the CEO uh we grew a company from 300 people to 720 uh uh people and um build the the largest uh heavy maintenance facility in Florida at the time and uh really prospered and in 2002 I left I established abbz was a platform to invest in aviation uh to buy other companies uh I sold my last company in 2011 there was a composite repair shop and uh started the corent business uh at a abiz which is uh Consulting sure so that's me and [unclear] and and you're on the boards like uh you're on the board of Sentry and some other companies right correct yes I'm on on the board of

Sentry couple other things that I'm involved with and I'm actually on a few non for-profit uh boards um with one of them is I'm the chairman of the Miami date College um Aviation School advisory committee sure Miami date College to those who don't know is the largest university in the US with over 165,000 uh students uh I'm on a board of the beacon Council which is the economic development arm of Miami date County and of course I am the President of the Greater Miami Aviation Association which is my biggest Focus these days got it we just need to slide you in Ember riddle now too and then you'll be uh really you'll be complete I'm just well you know you know let me let me say something about Ember riddle so first of all Embry Riddle and um some of their um senior uh people have been part of our board of directors over the years we support students from Embry Riddle uh every year with scholarships sure sure and and I will give you just a little uh story that um really uh exemplifies what it means for us to pay it forward you had on a podcast uh a few months ago uh Tyler Norman uh Tyler has been very successful uh in in our area with as far as the engines with with with his company Tyler was a recipient of a GMA scholarship back in 15 years ago Wow when he was struggling to um to graduate from Eid so fast forward 15 years later we gave him a couple of years ago the Eddie rickenbaker award for the accomplishments that he's made with his company so so you know I I have another story about um a young um rocket engineer from Ukraine who came here as

uh you know she ran away from Ukraine and went to Ido we helped her with a few scholarships she's now the head launch engineer for SpaceX oh my gosh W you know stories like this are what makes it worthwhile for us to uh to be involved with uh the GMA that that has to be so rewarding um so how many how many Aviation companies are in South Florida I mean I I've always you know heard some guesses but you'd probably be the authority on it to to my knowledge and I probably know most of them or uh you know there are new companies coming every day but to my knowledge there's about 600 Aviation companies in and around the three or five 954 uh area code but I'll tell you a more um astonishing statistics in Miami date County one out of four jobs is related to Aviation of course the biggest driver is Miami International Airport also Fort L airport last year Miami International Airport was the number one airport in the country for international cargo the number two in international passengers 56 million people came through Miami International Airport 35 million people came through Fort Lauderdale so with all this of course there's so many uh Aviation related businesses there's a a deep history in in uh South Florida with the aviation industry starting with the mail service uh pan mail service from Miami Beach to Havana in 192 7 uh in Eastern and PanAm and mid I mean list is endless so yeah we've always been a mecha to Aviation wow so yeah there has to be almost a thousand easy um so so you're

in in addition to your Consulting and and being on the College Board you run GMAA how's that going it's going fantastic uh it really is we have an amazing Board of director of 20 very dedicated individuals who have no financial gain doing what they're doing they're just passionate about uh you know our three pillars as we call it of uh activities which is I like to call it IRS inform um and uh inform uh people how do we inform people we um we have uh monthly luncheons where we have uh very very uh engaging speakers uh from all walks of of the industry we have the OEM such as Boeing and Airbus and Ember a we have Airlines including International Airlines who are coming to uh to Miami in Fort Lauderdale we have the airport on senior Personnel uh from both airports we have MOS we have Distributors we have you know everybody that touches a ation uh could have a platform uh with the uh GMAA we represent that's the r we represent and and how do we do this we have connections to the local government as as well as the Washington delegation we cooperate with other uh Aviation associations like AATA and and others uh to help um our local businesses and the S stands for scholarships and last year we gave 50 scholarships 100, $100,000 in scholarships to uh prospecting Pilots mechanics control tower operators um managers it's fantastic that's fantastic um okay so um yeah I mean GMA uh we

certainly at oyster would like to get involved more um you know we we certainly work with many many companies down there um I'm sure you've heard that before who knows maybe we'll have a satellite office there someday um yeah so uh before we before we wrap it up is there anything um that you kind of want to touch on we'll certainly um get your next lunch's out we'll we'll we'll try to help with awareness um is there anything else you'd like to add before we call a call it a wrap well I mean I think the only the only thing I wanted to add to your uh listener is you know from from my 35 years in the industry you know we get to know who does it right and who does it wrong and and I wanted to say to your listeners there's only one way to do it right and that's you know be straight be honest be loyal be passionate love what you do and uh and it will pay dividend so and and of course paid for it so um you know I'm a big fan of your your podcast you've had amazing people on it uh some of actually Abdul mbery is a recipient of our right brother award uh and so um you know and and of course I mentioned Tyler so people like this who um make it a habit to uh invest in the future of Aviation are what makes our industry good oh that's wonderful I mean and we try to to do that I mean we we we've actually removed a couple of Bad actors from our platform and you know it felt good just because you know we want we want people on it that uh shoot straight As you say so all right Aviv thank you so much for this quick blip today we hope you're well and we're looking forward to seeing

you at the next GMAA event my pleasure and always onward and upward you got it all right take care bye bye