Bruce Byerly has aviation in his blood. His grandfather began flying in the 1920s, and passed the flying gene to his son, who passed it to Bruce. Bruce continues the family legacy as 50-percent owner and head of the company’s sales and management efforts.
Bruce soled an airplane on his sixteenth birthday, got his certificate on his seventeenth, and started working with the family business soon after. He spent years working in the paint and interior shop after college, an experience that he said instilled in him the value of a job done correctly the first time. He said he continues to see paint jobs in the field he worked on that are still holding up.
In the early 1990s Bruce migrated into flying charter and canceled checks. If the paint shop taught him the value of work, flying checks taught him to truly fly. Ask anyone who regularly flies in Midwest winters and they’ll likely tell you the same.
Unlike most charter operations, Bruce said that Byerly Aviation committed to fixing every little squawk, and addressing every issue. It’s a mindset he now takes across the entire operation. By focusing on service, excellence, and attention to detail. Byerly has been able to continue to grow. “I’m dealing with generations of families my father and grandfather dealt with before,” he said. That sort of loyalty is hard to come by, and for Bruce it goes both ways.
Running the sales and management operation plays to Bruce’s strengths. It’s something his grandfather and father both excelled at as well. Bruce said he thinks most of what he can offer is information, gained from watching his family, painting and fueling airplanes, and flying them for hire. Be it painting, maintaining, upgrading, or flying a Twin Commander, he can either speak to it personally, or knows someone who can. “I don’t claim to be a mechanic, but I sure do know who to call to get what a customer needs.” Full service is something he strives to provide both personally and through Byerly’s many other operations.
