SERVICE CENTER PROFILE Creating a Winner

There’s a new energy at an old service center. A mainstay of the Twin Commander Factory Authorized Service Centers for decades, Winner Aviation’s new management has brought a renewed excitement and even more focus on customer needs to the business.

Headed now by turnaround specialist Meg Bianco, Winner sold off the FBO and now operates only airline ground services and an MRO facility in Youngstown, Ohio. In addition to being a Twin Commander Factory Authorized Service Center, Winner is also a Honeywell-approved facility, which translates to discounts on critical engine components, expanded tooling, and additional expertise.

Winner Aviation began nearly 75 years ago as Beckett Aviation at the Youngstown, Ohio, airport. The airport had just opened, and there wasn’t a fuel provider. Forest Beckett had recently been exposed to aviation through a friend and he saw an opportunity to fuse his new passion for aviation with his abilities in business. A company history says that in the 1950s Beckett invented the earliest type of fractional ownership, and by the 1960s the MRO facility was maintaining about 55 aircraft as part of that business. By the 1980s the company had grown to 18 FBO locations, and in 1995 Jim Winner bought the facility at Youngstown and renamed it Winner Aviation. Rick Hale became the CEO. In 2008 Hale purchased the company, and late in 2018 he brought on high school classmate Bianco to re-energize the organization and plan strategic growth.

Youngstown is not the first place you’d think to put a world-class MRO facility. The winters are cold, big-city services require a bit of a drive, and economic conditions in the area have suffered from a move to offshore manufacturing. But Bianco contends it has the best Italian food outside of Italy, not to mentioned highly experienced technicians who treat customers and each other like family.

A few of the company’s 30 or so MRO employees have been on the job for more than 40 years, and the average time of service is 23 years. That steady workforce translates to a comfort level from customers. They know who they are going to talk to when they call, they know the names of the people working on their airplane, and they trust the work will be consistent. Bianco said the reason aviators love coming to Winner is because of the people. “They know they’re in good hands. We will get them safely back in the air on time, and best of all, they get treated like family.”

Trust is part of that relationship. The company philosophy is that customers should never be surprised. Bianco said they never get a surprise bill, and the work is done on time. “People are coming to Youngstown because elsewhere they get one quote and a completely different bill. They don’t have to worry about anything when they think about bringing their plane to Winner.”

Tim Tobey, who runs the MRO business, gave a prime example of this philosophy in action. Tobey is proud of Winner’s pre-purchase inspection capabilities, something the company tends to do a lot of. When we spoke, he had just returned from a few days in Texas preparing a Twin Commander for a ferry flight from its current home to Youngstown in order to be evaluated for a potential buyer. Although the airplane had only sat for a month or two Tobey was worried about some test results from one of the engines, and he wanted to make sure it was safe to ferry the airplane. “My standard is that if I won’t get in it or won’t put my family in it, I don’t think it’s safe to fly,” he said.

The buyer is a California-based customer Tobey hadn’t previously worked with. “Customer communication is key,” he said. “Everyone has to be comfortable.” By keeping the buyer and seller continually updated and involved in the process Tobey was able to build trust with the current owner in order for it to be released to Youngstown, while gaining the confidence of the potential buyer that Winner’s inspection process will be robust enough to ensure he’s getting a solid deal. “I invite everyone to the shop during the inspection,” he said. It’s his way of making the process as transparent as possible.

Pre-purchase inspections are a niche for Winner, but they are just a small portion of what the company can do on a Twin Commander. “There’s nothing we can’t do,” Tobey said. He touts their heavy structural repair and sheet metal work, which often brings them insurance cases. Winner can also do full avionics upgrades, interior refurbishments, and limited painting.

Experience is a major asset in inspection and maintenance work because same-model airplanes tend to have similar issues. Knowing the history of the model, and possibly the specific airframe, makes for quicker troubleshooting and more efficient repairs. “Ninety percent of the time you know where to go because you’ve seen it before,” Tobey said. “It saves the customer time and money and that’s a plus.”

Bianco’s experience as a turnaround specialist usually means she’s in and out of a company quickly. But Winner has drawn her in. She said she loves the passion of the aviation community and feels proud to be able to serve in a business with such a rich history. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been changes. She initially faced a culture rooted in tradition. Now when someone says, “That’s just how we do it,” Bianco’s favorite reply is, “Yes, but it’s a new day at Winner.”