Robert Bial, Airflight Aerospace

Welcome to the Oyster Aero PearlCast, where we sit down with founders and leaders shaping the aviation industry. From freshly formed startups to the biggest names in the sky, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Turbo Resources in Phoenix, Arizona. Now operating in 450,000 square ft of state-of-the-art warehouse space, Turbo continues to keep the aviation industry flying and is actively buying material. Now, we hope you enjoy this episode. Okay. Hello everyone. Jeff Jerge with the Oyster Aero PearlCast and today we have my friend aviation legend and colleague Robert Bial. How are you doing sir? I'm doing well Jeff thanks uh thanks very much for that very very proper uh introduction. So of course of course legend. Yeah I guess you know whatever is that live long enough and you become a legend or uh I think that's how it works.

I'm I think I'm half a legend. so far. But you're young. You have time. No, I wouldn't say that young, but uh so I'm working my way there. Um Airflight Aerospace is your latest venture, right? It is. It is. Okay. And but let's talk a little bit about what got you up to there. I like to do, you know, tell me about how you got in aviation, you know, a little bit of that. You got it. You got it. Uh and and you know, all kidding aside, thank you for having me on your podcast because I know I've got uh some very big shoes. Uh the Neilman interview was amazing and all of them were Abdul and and uh but uh but I appreciate um I'm humbled that I would even be in their their shadows. But uh uh and all that you've been doing at Oyster, you and I became acquainted uh at at Air Parts Now, but we can get into that later. Uh what got me in aviation? Birth got me in aviation. Uh uh my father immigrated to the United States in 1948 from Argentina. Uh spoke no English. Uh and within a few years uh took some college classes but got a job at the Argentine embassy in the 1950s buying aircraft parts. Uh and boom, he had a profession. Uh and and really never looked back. uh he he moved around from smaller companies uh both in New York and California, but ultimately settled in New York and went to work for um what what at the time was called Mars uh radio, but it was a division of AAR, Allen Aircraft Radio.

Uh so my dad was started with them in the the mid 1960s and um he was promoted around and about in New York and then ultimately was promoted a senior vice president of sales. Um I was I don't know 10 8 something like that and we moved to Chicago. Uh, so my dad was at AR into 1976, I think is when he left. But I used to go and he went in every Saturday and I went in every Saturday with him and, uh, wander around the halls of AR when it was in Elro Village. Uh, they had a a radio shop and I used to go in there and kind of break things. Um, but uh, and it fascinated me. It certainly did. And my dad was in sales, traveled extensively the world and that fascinated me as well. And um in 1976 he and two other partners left AR and started a company by the name of Solair uh which was initially in Chicago but then moved to Florida. Uh I um a lot of there are a lot of what we call Solarians. Uh Solair spun off just like a AR did and does. There were a lot of spin-offs from Solair and uh a lot of my close friends that I made along the way worked we were worked together back then. and we called it Solar University.

Uh but they were kind of the the initial inventor I would say of the exchange program. Um when my dad first entered the industry, you airlines didn't even take used material. Everything was new. Uh and then eventually they would start to take OEM tags uh and and the overhaul world was born. Uh but there was nobody really out there doing the exchange business until Solair really kind of perfected it uh and and how that would work. And um they also were the the kind of early adopters of aircraft tearown. At the time there were no retiring aircraft. It was all incident related which is kind of persona no grata now but back in the day it was um you know it was the only way you'd get some equipment and we and we worked on some some big ones. There was a 737400 that went into the water in New York. Um, brand new airplane and we we bought it, dismantled it and started sending the parts out for overhaul and and noted what it was, but uh manufacturers were tagging the stuff as warranty. That's how new the stuff was. Uh, and that's how you know that that part of the business now it's all aging aircraft that gets dismantled. But, uh, so I joined the company. My dad sold the business in uh 1985 to Banner Aerospace.

Um Banner in its heyday was a public company with 17 subsidiaries north of a couple of billion dollars in sales. Uh but it I joined the company after it had been sold right out of college and that's where my my story began was there. although I worked some uh some afternoons in high school receiving inventories and things like that but um but really kind of buckled down and and entered the industry at that point and it fascinated me. I mean I'm I'm an op operations guy. I'm also uh OCD which you know I'll now call lean six sigma. uh and I was fascinated by the process of the business and uh really dug my heels in and and uh was promoted through that business uh up to vice president of um operations running basically our all our warehouses around the world as well as our main facility here in Fort Lauderdale. Um Banner acquired a a small repair station up in central Florida and uh offered me the opportunity to run it.

So, I was 34 years old, had young kids, and I'm like, I'll move to Disney World for a couple years and see how it goes. Uh, and I moved up there. Professional Aircraft was the name of the company. It was a it was a turnaround job. Uh, but I had a great team of people around me, uh, friends to this day. Actually, one of them is working here with me at Airflight now. Uh, and, um, took that one on a nice long run. We we were doing about 3 million a year, losing money with 20 people. And by the end of my tenure, which was 15 years later, we were the largest um aftermarket regional airline uh landing gear shop in the probably in the world. Um 250 employees doing close to 50 million a year. Uh and had a blast doing it. Um the folks at Banner were great to work with. Um my I have many mentors in my life but many of them came out of that organization uh and that taught me both right and wrong you know you you have good mentors and bad mentors you you learn you learn from the bad bosses I'm sure you know Jeff and we can probably share some horror stories but you know what to do what not to do how to treat people uh and and which has been key throughout my career is that I'm never as you can you can attest to I'm never the smartest guy in the room, but I am a good I am a good Did you say right? You just said right to that.

Oh, well, you know, I had to affirm that. [laughter] But I I enjoy I enjoy being a part of the process. A collaborative manager is is really the best way to describe what I do. open communication, get departments talking to each other, uh, and learn from the, well, that's how we've always done it being a problem to, hey, maybe if we turn it around this way, there's a actually a better way to do it. Uh, and that's my sweet spots, what I enjoy most. Um, as part of my opportunities at Banner, uh, mergers and acquisitions became something I absolutely love doing. Uh I was part of the team that would do the diligence, go in and do um our inspections and our audits, but start to look at the opportunities that were were afforded us uh by acquiring some companies and making them part of uh you know fitting them both uh both a vertical integration um which which makes sense but organically growing your brand simply by buying competitors or additional product lines and um so I I really enjoy doing that.

Uh actually that's part of my my present day story as well. Uh but along the road I I looked at a small airline in Texas to buy for at that point we had been sold uh Banner had sold us to Greenwich Aero Group and uh I looked at a small airline in Texas to acquire it was a military airlift and did some on demand cargo. Hit it off with the management team and uh this is where I'm a bad a bad buyer and a bad consultant because I started to talk about all the things they could do with that. uh it was more my mind working what what can we do once we acquire it but I got them so excited that they ended up pulling it from the market and then started making me offers to go work for them. Uh, and it was a about a year, year and a half dance back and forth. It involved some equity and I joined them uh, with my my main goal was to help them ready it for a a true sale. Uh, assist in creating it was a it was a founderowned business, mom and pop so to speak, but doing very well. But some of the founderowned um, processes didn't work anymore. You need to involve more people in doing a budget. you need to understand the complexities of the business. Uh and uh almost 5 years to the day, the goal was five years. We took it on a nice long run and then uh sold the business in 2018 to Acorn Growth Companies, AGC. Um and it it was a great deal. Uh great people at Acorn, but I was at a stage of my career where I had done the private equity. I know the model. Uh I love working in businesses too much to grow them and then see them be sold. Um so I uh agreed to stick around. I stayed for a year, helped him through the transition and then in 2019 I started a holding company called Forefront Aerospace. Um the intent was to go after and acquire uh existing repair stations or invest in them. Um the first one out of the back the gate I had some bankers and finance people with me and uh lost out to Unic had had had purchased out from under me had deeper pockets

obviously and uh and then CO happened and that's where that's where that's where what that now they're really deep with Airbus money. Oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. [laughter] Oh yeah. But uh COVID happened and that's kind of where our stories uh intersect because one of the buyers that looked at uh at Barry Aviation which was the airline that I that that we had sold was Sam Simon who owns um or owned Aero Parts now. Uh and uh I I got reached out to Couldn't you come on the board? You know, we need some more aviation-minded people. Uh I love software uh as a tool. Uh I learned in the few years that we all worked together that I don't like to sell software. I can't sit through the demos and fall asleep and um but it was a great product. Uh one of the things they wanted me to do was find a CEO. Uh I came across this guy Jeff something or other worked at ILS and Boeing and uh a dear friend of mine who we were both friends with over in England uh Mary Sanford um said hey this is a good guy and that's where that's where you and I started working together which was [unclear]. I'm just kidding. So yeah, [laughter] good to good.

Yes, she Mary's never wrong, you know that. So I know. Yeah. So um but let me get to so that gets me to Airflight. So I did that for a couple of years and co slowed down and then uh I was in a situation where I wanted to get back to my roots, which is I love 145 repair stations of any place I've been. I started in distribution. Uh I I ran a 145. Uh then actually for Greenwich, I ran all of their 145. uh and and distribution or redistribution holdings and then I worked at an airline. So I basically everything together because I stood up a repair station at the airline. So it was repair station, it was airline, it was crew, it was all of the things. And I'm like, "Yeah, wait. This is too far. Let me take it back down to the 145 side." And um and I came across Airflight. It was a small shop that was founded uh during COVID. Um and they were struggling with it. Didn't know what to do with it. And I made them an offer. they accepted and uh and that brought me to pretty much today. That's three years now that we've owned it. So, uh that's that's a long answer to your short question. I apologize.

Um that's a uh wow that's a autobiography that's like [laughter] hundreds of pages long. But it's really kind I mean it's not so it it I love the industry because you you like you really started when you were eight years old in an instrument shop you know a radio shop right and now your boys are doing this too right yeah so yeah third third generation has entered the uh the industry both of them uh entered and worked elsewhere uh I didn't want to torture them until they got tortured by other people uh so my older son Adam uh started at GA Tellesis uh then he worked for a couple small shops until we brought them into both Airflight and then uh kind of another another little piece of my my resume is I in addition to running Airflight, I do hold a position of chief operating officer for um a major military redistribution company by the name of D&D uh Enterprises. Uh so Adam actually works uh for them. Um kind of dabbles in Airflight. Uh my younger son right out of college uh worked for a small FBO in Atlanta at P at PDK uh and then applied for a job at Delta and ended up doing close to six years for Delta. Uh and um he didn't enjoy flying around the world and all the flight privileges and decided he wanted to get tortured by dad also. So uh so Peter's now moved down. He's been down here since March. Um, and it's been a lot of fun early to have. It's the first time, you know, and and and that's something, you know, uh, legacy and family is probably tantamount to anything else I do. Uh, and and you and I have a mutual friend and someone we both look up to, and that's Irv Hoffman. Uh, you know, Irv for all of his success, the one thing I always congratulate him for is family and how important that is. uh and the roots of of Turbo Resources and and uh again I've had I said I've had many mentors certainly on that short list of

mentor people I've looked up to that have just done extraordinary things with their career but also uh made it a part of the fabric of of who they are as as a family too and I and I and I I emulate that and I uh and you know so it's some of what we do here. Forget money and and success and branding and all that. I can't imagine and now that my boys are college age, like I can't imagine how rewarding it must be as a dad to just coming to work and your boys are working with you. You know, you're going to be harder on them than you are anybody else, of course, but um it's just I I I I hope that happens. I hope I get blessed by that someday because it's I can't imagine that feeling, but it's it gives me goosebumps actually. So it it is very rewarding uh when when when both of them because we we've all attended shows at the same time even before we worked together and I can't tell you how uh I don't want to say anything too great about them because they may listen to this so you know I don't want to say anything else yeah don't never mind no I I worked for my dad and no matter what I did I always had to be better than anybody else and I and now that I have kids working with me I I get it. you want you want that much more. And um but it's you know listen it's uh it's very it is very rewarding and and I got good kids that that do the right thing. So uh the the last thing I'll say there was a joke told the last night at the Turbo Classic and I don't know if it's true but if you want a 5% discount teller that you love his family and and the grandkids and then you can get a that's all it takes man. I've been saying that I got to start buying Well, we do buy a lot from him. Wait a second.

Well, hey, hey, listen. When I started Airflight, he was the first guy to give me open account. So, uh, it counts for something. But, you know, when he opened the when he opened the new warehouse, I I texted him and I because I saw the video and all that. And that's the what I said. I said, you know, all that amazing facility and all the trappings of all your success, the thing that that always impresses with me most is is your family. So, but yeah, like I said, so uh so that brings us to today. I mean, Airflight uh has been a kind of a labor of love. Uh it's a little smaller than what I wanted to start with. I was looking for kind of something that was up and running, and this this was up and running, but it it didn't have um you know, the the cash flow I was necessarily looking for. So, it was more of a startup than anything else. But, um the nice thing about doing a startup is you do it the way you want it. You do it all right. Uh and you know, you create an environment that you want to work in. Uh that that's another really important part of of my background is is I work a lot of hours uh and I work hard, but I like to have fun at work and I like to be treated with respect at work. Uh and I like to communicate with people uh and and and creating that environment. You know, when I when I moved up from Fort Lauderdale to run the shop in in Titusville, I kind of came out of a a Solair had been it was already sold. Uh it had new management. Um kind of a different mindset. It had become very um there's a lot of little clicks and backstabbing and watch your back kind of place and and I you listen I navigated my way through it but it certainly was not enjoyable by any sure shape and when I went up to pa I'm like you know what I want to like going to work I want to be happy at work and it starts with me you know as president of the company and uh and and it was showing that respect to every level and every every aspect of a business is so important when you're when you're doing anything. Uh, and that brings me here.

It's like when when I bought this shop and we're in FSDO 19, which is basically Broward and Day County. I was at Palm Beach also, but but it's the toughest FSDO because of the reputation um, unfortunately that that South Florida has uh, and some of the bad actors in our industry. And my friends are like, why would you move out of FISA 15, which was up in Orlando? And and I made the joke, you know, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But I I wanted I wanted a bigger pool of mechanics and they're like, "Oh, you'll see. They all cross, you know, they'll cross the street for 50 cents and and you know, they all feed off each other." And I'm like, you know, my philosophy is if you can create a nice nice place to work and you pay the market. I mean, you can't you can't cheap out. It's a tough labor market when it comes to the MRO right now. You got to pay what these guys are worth. Uh but if you give them that nice environment and you show them respect, um they don't leave. And you know, knockwood, I have some amazing guys that have joined us uh from other shops down here in South Florida. And you know, we put a really good team of people together headed up by Billy Mlan is I alluded to earlier. He's he runs the shop. Uh and he and I work together.

Actually, we started up at PAA about a month apart. Um so we have a long history together of knowing each other. Um which questions why he would want to work with me ever again, but you know, maybe who knows. But, uh, you know, listen, Airflight's, Airflight's up and running. Uh, we're doing landing gear, we do the C130 gear, we do hydraulics, pneumatics. Uh, we've got NDT up and running. So, um, you know, it's really there now and it's exciting to see all the new opportunities we get both in our collaboration with DND as well as u deeper into the market. On the commercial side, we do the caravan um, Grand Caravan gear. Uh, that's been a nice product type for us. And you know, we're adding new capabilities every day, which has been great. I started with there were four items on my capability list the day I I got the ticket. I make that we're we're like 500 now of active part numbers that we get in, which is which has been exciting. So that's awesome. That's awesome. Wow. Um you know, everybody you mentioned, I mean, like even the private equity side, I mean, Acorn is one of the good ones. I mean, you know, with Adam at at Sentry and um kind of Air Trade, I mean, they've put, you know, everybody you've ran with has been a really good pedigree. So, the the only thing I don't like about it, I mean, and listen, uh you know, the guys at Acorn were always good to me. uh they they more so than anybody uh I don't want to pick on Greenwich because I have a lot of friends there but but even more so than Greenwich where I where they had a history with me you know when I decided to leave you know the managing partner Rick Nagel sat me down really want to understand why uh why I was doing it and you know is there anything we could do to for you not do and and he understood you know he said hey what you're doing makes sense and uh but that model again like I said earlier the buy it and sell it. I mean, I I I always feel calls from head hunters and I always listen and and about a year ago, I had head hunter that was putting together a group of repair stations. He was buying into something and and he had

the mindset that, you know, we're going to do this in three years, you know, blah blah blah. We're going to dump some money into it and then we're going to sell it. And and that just does not excite me. I find that to be, you know, it's like it's like getting married. It's like, yeah, I'll stick with you for three years and then I'm going to move on and find somebody else. You're building you're building a legacy for your kids and you and and lots of other people. You're not interested in, you know, flipping. So, no. No. And and listen, I get it. It's an interesting model and it makes money for people, but I think ultimately it isn't necessarily good for the health of the business because when you're when you're strictly trying to grow to sell, you have a different mindset of what you're doing in the business. And so, you know, but again, it's I'm not I'm not faulting it. that uh a lot of people do really well doing that. It's just not um maybe I'm I'm too dumb to get on my own way, but I I just love the the um the aspects and the and all the excitement I get coming in here uh and what's new and what can we do and and and just just to sell it off. It just doesn't excite me. So, yeah, that's unless someone's willing to offer me a whole lot of money and you know, well, sure. Right.

I'm not sure who who this goes out to, but you know, give me a call. Your strategy is not to [laughter] just dress it for sale basically. So that is different. And I have to notice I think you have pearls on the wall behind you which means you get oyster oyster for life for free. So I bought that. I saw I saw Oh my god. That's that's right up for Jeff. So that's why we hung it. We hung it this morning. And uh that's my new corporate gift uh at the end of the year for all my uh Okay. Well, it's for sale. Do you want me to I could [laughter] put it on oy I could put it on Oyster Aero with a couple other parts I have and see if it sells. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. So, um what I guess from a we lad in the instrument shop to watching your kids enter the industry, what do you think are some of the like what's changing? You know what I mean? And I mean I I'm not even gonna preempt it with some things in my head, but like what do you think the next generation of parts trading, MRO's aftermarket?

Well Well, I can answer that question in two ways because I guess because there there are two parts to that, but the first part is I'm a dinosaur. Uh I'm used to brute strength, roll your sleeves up, get the work done. Uh work life balance. What does that mean? You know, listen, I'll balance things while I'm at work. Uh but um and I will say my my father um my father passed away this past Friday. It was 25 years since my dad passed away. And my father he saw the stress in in me when I was turning around paa and he said to me uh something that unfortunately rang very true about four months later and he he said don't make the mistakes that I made uh when when you're taking your last breath. I'll get choked up now. It's not going to be your bosses that are standing around you. It's going to be your family and don't don't and uh four months later it was my sisters and my mom and I. So it unfortunately rang very true very quick. So I I always tried to be there but you know work was I worked the hours I had to work to get to get things done. uh this these later generations and and I think a lot of this was accelerated during co but you know they are more interested in in equality of life and I can't necessarily blame them but I think the speaking that language uh and understanding between the generations uh is is something that you're challenged with you know when you're bringing in younger workers um we have some younger guys on our team that are just amazing one one kid that came out of the Navy and I mean he just works his heart out um So there are those amongst there but that is one issue that I think a as the older generations are still in the industry we need to find a way to engage those that generation uh and I think we can but then the other thing you know is something you and I have talked about at length is you know AI as much as everybody talks about it um we're seeing things now that

that is totally going to change everything and and whoever holds a secret to how how you get AI to apply to something like and this is less so on the repair station side but certainly on the distribution side parts are a commodity in our industry it's worth whatever whatever someone needs on any given day um and not new parts you know hardware blah blah blah but when we're coming to roles it's a commodity you know how much is that worth well do you need how you know who needs it and how many are out there I don't know who's going to crack that safe open when it comes to AI, but whoever does will change this industry. Um, I I don't want to say for the better or for the worse. I have my opinions. Uh, and and those are clouded by, you know, as long as I've been in the industry, but it's going to change things. Uh, there's there's no doubt about it. Yeah. I mean, that's why, you know, Oyster is going great and I'm loving it and but I split my time with this company, Sales Patriot, too, because I can't watch the AI go by, you know? So much of our world in parts trading is data entry and all that. And so if you didn't have to do all of that and you didn't and you could minimize the research like think about what you could do like with people like I'm hoping that we get back to in a weird way. Let me try to even formulate this. So 20 years ago it was like more relationship driven than anything and then we've gotten into a lot of volume where it's just data data data. And you know, I'm hoping that this next generation gets back to the relationship because the automation of data like that would be a cool cycle, you know, that's a great that's a great uh hope. I I'll put it that way because it it is.

And I think, you know, well, I'll talk about my kids. I think my kids recognize now that the relationship is what is key to anything we do, no matter what we do, no matter what. And I've been through it all. I mean, when I started, you know, ILS was the old whisper writer with the with the um you put your phone down. I mean, we had no internet. Uh and you know, so relationships were important. Uh as technology caught up with our industry and it got easier, we had email and we had it got easy to lose sight of the fact that I know frick Robert can take care of this. I'll give him a call and even if he's, you know, on vacation or sleeping in the middle of the night, he'll he'll find me this part or he'll get it out of his shop for him. You know, that still matters. Uh, and it has to matter because it the the quality is should be a level playing field in in our industry. Um, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but but customer service and and and supporting a customer uh isn't a level playing field. And and again, that's where some of these conglomerates now that that are are buying up everybody, they lose sight of of the of what the mission is. The mission is taking care of the customer.

Uh I think I think there could be a marriage between AI and that taking care of a customer and not losing that touch. But I mean there is so much data thrown out thrown at us every day that you know like our phones. I mean I can run my whole shop on the software right on my phone. um these things were supposed to make our lives easier and what they've done is just ma made it easier to work 24 hours a day. So um but but you're right if if we can marry the two and the relationship and technology uh work hand in hand then yeah that again that's someone's someone smarts out there is going to crack that code and uh so yeah that's awesome. Well um you know I only asked three questions and you talked for 35 minutes which isn't uncharacteristic you know so um I heard the record was 40. Can we go another six minutes? And I I know, right? Let's [laughter] go. Anyway, um Robert, I have adored you since I met you, even though we ran in parallels uh up until 2020. And um you know, it's good to have you on and thank you and is, you know, um it it's going to be fun watching your boys continue on while you're still there, of course. Um and I just I just love your story. So, um, let's keep rocking it.

You got it. And I appreciate it. And I appreciate everything you're doing in the industry as well, Jeff. So, all right. Take care. Thank you. Bye.