#166 - Bart Gray's Ascent in the World of Airborne Rescue

As a child, Bart Gray transformed the ceiling of his bedroom into an aerial display of model planes, a prelude to the life he would later embrace. Today, as president of Global Jet Care, he joins us to recount the trajectory from those early dreams to the cockpit of life-saving air ambulances. We'll explore how a single Learjet ride morphed into a lifetime love affair with aviation, and how Bart's academic pursuits at Ohio University, combined with the widespread availability of flight schools, have proven that the sky is accessible to all who dare to dream it.

Bart's journey is not one of smooth ascents; it's punctuated with the turbulence of post-9/11 industry upheaval and the challenges of business partnerships. He candidly shares the pitfalls and triumphs of his career, including a stint in airline work that left him yearning for more — a yearning that would steer him back to the unpredictable yet immensely fulfilling world of air ambulance services. As Bart's narrative unfolds, we learn that the key to a rewarding career in aviation isn't just about reaching altitudes; it's about finding joy and purpose in the flights you choose to navigate, even when confronted with unexpected layovers in life's itinerary.

Finally, we strap in with Bart for a behind-the-scenes look at the financial aerobatics of running an air ambulance operation, from the acquisition of Learjet 36s to the strategic planning for business growth and community service. Bart's story extends beyond the technical, offering a personal account of what it means to touch lives through the unique experiences of Global Jet Care, making a difference one flight at a time. Whether you're an aviation enthusiast or simply intrigued by what it takes to turn a passion for flying into a life's work, this episode is your boarding pass to inspiration.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:00

Hey, what's going on? Guys Got a special guest here today. We have Bart Gray. He's the president of Global Jet Care, a worldwide air ambulance service. Bart, I'm so excited to have you here. I have a first question for you, and then we'll dive into your story. How did you get started with flying? How does that even happen?

Speaker 2: 1:18

Yeah, it's a bug you catch. Really. I mean I think that's it. Then you're just stuck with it for life, good or bad.

Speaker 2: 1:25

But I started flying when I was in high school. I didn't really I guess you don't know when you're a kid you don't really, I guess you don't think about it as much. But I was always into airplanes and models and building model airplanes, stuff like that, and my mom actually worked for a company manufactured car parts in Ohio. I grew up in Mansfield Ohio and she worked for a company that manufactured car parts and they owned a Learjet is their corporate airplane and they had offices in Michigan and offices in Florida and they kind of flew their executives around and my mom was in their computer, it, hr, payroll kind of department there at the company and she got an offer to go on the airplane one day. They were going to Boston for a meeting or something and there was an open seat and so she took me and I kind of I don't even know how old I was I don't know I'm younger than 15. I mean somewhere around younger than that and so I wrote on the Learjet for the day and I met the pilots. You know that's a super cool thing to do, you know, when you're that age.

Speaker 2: 2:33

So I met the pilots and then I talked into one of the co-pilots there and he was telling me where he went to college and what he did. Now he became a pilot and I just fell in love with him. I thought that's great. And then I had aspirations to go to the Naval Academy and ended up not working out and sort of at the 11th hour. I went to Ohio University and they had an aviation program and the summer before I went to college there I ended up getting my private pilot's license and at my little hometown airport which put me a little head starting college that way and yeah, and I got a degree in aviation and then just took off from there. So, yeah, that's definitely how I fell into it. Like I said, it's definitely a bug that you just catch and then you just it's the greatest ever.

Speaker 1: 3:19

Absolutely. I mean, and the idea of it is very interesting because it's like most people think of private jets, like I could never do that, I could never fly a plane. And you start to realize that the accessibility of planes and people want to encourage that. So like, is it accessible for people to even fly planes?

Speaker 2: 3:37

or like get trained nowadays, cause like yeah, yeah, boy, I have so many friends, you know that, they know I'm a pilot and they always, you know, hit me with, oh, I should have done that. And I'm like, well, do it now. You know, like what are you waiting on? You know, it's really, it's not that hard. You know it depends on the level you want to be at, just like anything else, any other, you know, hobby, I mean, if you want to dip your toe in, the first part is pretty easy. Anybody can go to their local airport and learn to fly. It's not cheap but it's not wildly expensive. I mean, there's definitely, you know, all hobbies that can get expensive, but you know you can, within two months, go from nothing to a private pilot where you can rent a little airplane and take your family on. You know, sightseeing trips and or, you know, fly across the state or whatever. I mean it's a pretty easy thing to get into. It's just like anything else just got to go, do it.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Yeah, absolutely, it's very accessible.

Speaker 2: 4:30

It really is. I mean in flight schools, you know, especially recently after all the COVID nonsense, I mean the flight schools have popped up everywhere. I mean you would be hard pressed to find an airport that didn't have a flight school, with a couple of little airplanes and instructors and teaching people how to fly. I mean they're everywhere now. It was really popular.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Yeah, absolutely. I know I'm in the Tampa area and I know you're in Tampa as well, but there's literally the Davis Island Airport. There's a few other airports around. They're all over the place.

Speaker 2: 5:01

Yeah, clearwater, even Tampa has a couple of flight schools. Even the big airports have flight schools. I mean they're everywhere. You pick an airport and there's a flight school there, guaranteed.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Yeah, I just wanted to kind of get into that, just because I know that the audience is going to be like, oh, this guy barked out lucky, like there's no way, like I could fly a plane. And you start to realize that you're like, yes, you can fly a plane, like you can do this, and that's why I wanted to bring Bart on, because he's got an incredible story. It's super interesting and like it's going to show you a different path. That's kind of unconventional. So at that time, when you were going to college was were you just the unique guy who like flying or was flying like it is today, where it's just so prevalent? People sit there traveling everywhere.

Speaker 2: 5:48

Yeah, I mean I was in when I went to college. I was in. First of all I had no idea, like, what I was going to do in aviation. I don't think anybody who first learns to fly in college and that everybody thinks they do.

Speaker 2: 6:00

You know, I mean I was in, you know, I don't know how many you know, a hundred other kids that were in the aviation program there at Ohio University and everybody thought they knew what they wanted to do.

Speaker 2: 6:09

Everybody talked about I'm going to work for this airline or I'm going to fly on this corporate airplane, or I'm going to go work for this you know Fortune 500 company and fly their executives or everybody thought they needed, wanted to do it, and boy, I bet probably none of them are doing exactly what they thought they were going to do in college. There's so many options in aviation between the military and corporate and commercial and private. I mean, it's just there's so many things you can do in aviation and you just kind of fall into. You know what you like to do. Once you learn, you know and you really you know, get all your ratings and you really understand, you know the aviation world. You just kind of start looking for jobs and you wind up finding one that you really enjoy. And if you enjoy, I think you just kind of stick with it and there's a lot of that's sort of how.

Speaker 1: 6:54

what happened to me anyway, yeah, definitely, cause I mean most of the time, we always think everything's a path, right, so it's one step, the next step, the next step. But actuality is, you try one thing, you like it, you try another thing, you don't like it, and you live and you learn and you grow from that each and every time, which I think is the most important lesson.

Speaker 2: 7:15

Yeah, yeah, I mean I graduated college in 99 is when I graduated with an aviation degree and just started sending out resumes. It wasn't as easy to get a job back then. You know, pilots there was a the airlines. I mean you really you know people weren't leaving college going straight to the airlines. I mean they were going to other jobs or they were getting jobs as flight instructors and teaching for a couple of years and building that experience. There's a pretty huge shortage of pilots over the past bunch of years now. So that's really changed.

Speaker 2: 7:47

But you know, when I graduated college, you know you had to go, you know, work somewhere for several years before you could even dream of applying at the airlines. I was an intern for United Airlines when I was in college and I worked for them for a summer and I was convinced I mean you could not tell me different that I was going to work for United Airlines at that time. It was a really great company to the intern for still is. I love the company, but I was convinced that's where I was going to go and but you know it was going to be several years before I could go, build the experience, before they would even interview me even as an intern with a sort of a priority foot in the door there.

Speaker 2: 8:22

it was still going to be years and in the meantime I just found something else that I just fell in love with and I really enjoyed, completely by chance a little bit. I mean, I was just, I was still on my way to meet anybody who'd talk to me.

Speaker 1: 8:36

Absolutely. And why was that that the commercial airlines were so sought after, or the Holy Grail at that point? Because I know most people look at it that way and then you don't realize that there's so many other options.

Speaker 2: 8:50

Yeah, that's sort of the brass ring, right. I mean, that's a, there's a, it's a very it's a. It's a well-paying job. You know, when it comes to pilots, you get it. For the most part, you get a schedule, you know. So you know where you're going to be, you know when you're going to be doing it. The aviation is the one of the coolest things ever, but the downside is, you know, there's a lot of travel, obviously, so you're gone a lot. So people that you know want to start a family and want to do those things. It can be difficult if you're gone 15, 20 days a month, and it's even harder sometimes if you don't know exactly when those days are going to be. At least if you have a set schedule and you know so that's why the airlines are such a popular thing. You know the schedule, everybody knows exactly where they're going to be when they're going to be gone.

Speaker 2: 9:34

And it's a well-paying job, so it's sort of the one that everybody likes, yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:39

Yeah, it's the consistency. So what ended up happening with you? Where did you go after that?

Speaker 2: 9:44

Well, you know, I moved out to, I threw my resume to anybody who would even talk to me at the time and I was looking for a flight instructor job. That's pretty much all I could get. You know, graduating college with, you know, I think I had seven or 800 hours of flight time, I had my commercial multi-engine rating and you know I was just looking for something. I was a flight instructor and so a company in Colorado hired me and I had always in the summers I was in the Boy Scouts and in the summers I would always go to New Mexico and Colorado backpacking and hiking with a Boy Scout. So I'd been out west a lot and I loved it out there. So I was kind of convinced after college I was going to move out west somewhere. And this company in Denver there was a flight school hired me and I went out there and I taught at the flight school for a bit.

Speaker 2: 10:27

I had a couple other side jobs. I flew God. I flew traffic watch. So I just flew around the city in a little Cessna with some reporters in the back talking about the traffic every morning and every afternoon. I mean I would do anything just to build some flight time and get some hours. And then I wanted to fly a jet. That's sort of the natural progression Everybody wants to fly a bigger, faster airplane, right? So I found this company that was doing air ambulance and went in and talked to him and gave him my resume and they hired me. I knew nothing about it, I'd never flown a jet, I'd never flown air ambulance, I had zero medical knowledge and I just said, oh, this sounds like a cool job. So I applied and got it.

Speaker 1: 11:06

So Well, I think that's one of the most important things is that you put yourself out there without knowing the actual results. Yeah, because 90% of the stuff is learned on the fly, like there's baseline education but it's really the default skills of like are you willing to learn? Yes, okay, we can teach you.

Speaker 2: 11:27

That's it and you have to. You know, in high school, in college, they kind of spoon feed stuff to you and maybe through college they start spoon feeding it a little bit less and you have to go out and find it more yourself. And then all of a sudden you graduate college and it's like nobody's spoon feeding you anything at all, like no knowledge is being forced into you. If you don't go find it and you don't do it, then you're just not gonna have it, and that's a big transition. I see that now with a lot of my employees. I hire a lot of new pilots and it's kind of an awakening Like, oh man, I gotta be the one to open the book and I gotta, you know, read this or nobody's gonna tell me this. So yeah, and that's what I did. So I wanna move to Colorado.

Speaker 2: 12:10

I started flight instructing and just learning as much about aviation as I could. I got this job flying air ambulance for this company out of Denver and if you'd asked me at the time, I had a swore that I was gonna do it for two or three years and then go work for United. But you know, everything changed. 9-11 happened. That was absolutely gigantic shift in aviation. I mean so many companies out of business. The company I worked for at the time, during 9-11, went out of business and what?

Speaker 1: 12:38

why was that like what occurred? I know obviously 9-11 happened.

Speaker 2: 12:42

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:44

Was the transition.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Yeah, just shut it, shut everything down and the aviation industry there for a while. I mean you know everything. An aviation just sort of Crashed wrong word, but yeah, I mean it was. It was a terrible time for aviation, right, I mean it was so many companies were struggling, there wasn't as much travel going on, especially the international travel at that time A lot of people you know a lot of people want to sleep rounded where they were.

Speaker 2: 13:12

Yeah, I don't want to go to the sky like that's kind of like COVID, I mean that shut a lot of international travel down. But you know, with with the exception of during 9-11, you know the government didn't step in and save all these companies, so a lot of them just went out of business. The company I work for went out of business and they were a fantastic company. I mean they were really great company to work for. I loved, I really enjoyed working for them in a job and and they were good, great people.

Speaker 2: 13:35

I mean everything was good and they just they went out of business and the airline industry was, you know, all of a sudden laid off. You know Thousands of pilots and you know there was just a really All of a sudden, the chance of working for an airline just got pushed back a bunch of years. You know, all of a sudden, you know you ten thousand plus pilots laid off and you know looking for jobs and Coming back and taking the jobs that you know that I was having at the time. So it was really really hard to find a job back then.

Speaker 1: 14:03

How did you feel in that moment?

Speaker 2: 14:05

because I could only imagine like you work so hard for something, and it's just I was, I was convinced I wanted to work for an airline and you know so I, right after 9-11 happened, you know I've sort of put my resume out to places and there was a small airline out of St Pete Southeast Airlines there and and they were just happened to be hiring and I was lucky enough to get a job there and I worked there for for several months. I never actually even went to training on the actual airplane. I worked there for several months. I was waiting on a training slot and just Working in that environment and I rode around on the airplanes a lot and jump-seated and try to, you know, learn the company in that and Realize real quick that this is not exciting, this is not for me.

Speaker 2: 14:49

You know, flying back and forth from Orlando to Stuart, new York, nine times a week is not, this is not fun. You know I had gone from. I had been flying air ambulance all over the world. You know I was flying all over Europe and you know, drop of the hat, last minute you get a phone call and drop everything, you're gonna go to Thailand tomorrow. I mean those, the kind of flying I was doing and that was what I liked and that's what I enjoyed. Now the sudden them flying this you know we're working for this company, that's funny, these big DC nines to New York and back and I was like, no, this is definitely, this is not for me. So when that happened, I just said, hey, I got a look for another air ambulance company because that's what I really enjoyed doing and I'm why do I want to stop doing that?

Speaker 1: 15:30

Absolutely. And what did you feel like with the travel? Like, because obviously you went from the flight instructor to Sounded like you were based in Denver. Here it's experience of Traveling whenever you right, not intentionally knowing where you're going, but you're traveling a lot of locations.

Speaker 2: 15:48

Yeah, travel is a weird thing, right? Everybody thinks it's. Everybody thinks it's what they want to do. If you ask a hundred people, do you, do you want to go travel more, like I think a 99 of them will say, yes, I want to go travel, but most of them don't realize, like, what that entails, especially Especially for work. You know, as a pilot, I mean it's everybody who's asked me, you know when you, I travel to these places, you know like, oh, you went to to Thailand, what did you know?

Speaker 2: 16:11

What was it like? And I'm like it was at the hotel. You know I was tired when I got there. I was tired when I had breakfast the next morning. You know it's, it's not as glamorous as people think and it's a lot of people think they like to travel, they think they'd be good at it and very few people are actually really good at it because it really takes a lot out of you. You got to be real tolerant of a lot of things. Everything in the world is so different in different places. So, yeah, but I loved it. I mean, I literally fell in love with it. I could, I could drop anything and pack a backpack and leave tomorrow for a month, you know, and it wouldn't bother me a bit. I mean I just I really really fell in love with it, enjoyed the travel and enjoyed the last-minute stuff.

Speaker 2: 16:51

And you know I had done several different aviation jobs at that point. I mean I had flight instructing, I had I had some buddies of mine that flew cargo through the mountains in Colorado at night and I rode with them and did it. I mean, and you know you don't realize it, I guess when you're, when you're younger, but you have to have something in the job that is somewhat rewarding or else you're just gonna get bored with it. And I had flown Just passengers, you know, and for the most part you're kind of a bus driver. They don't really look at the. You know you don't really get any kind of like you've actually helped anybody. You just you know food somebody from point A to point B. If I cargo, there's really no satisfaction in that, although it's, it's fun flying and you really always enjoy the flying.

Speaker 2: 17:35

But with air ambulance for me anyway, I mean you were picking up somebody's mother or somebody's brother who was hurt in some situation where you know they felt lost and they couldn't get out of, didn't know how to get out of that situation. Here you are kind of the cavalry coming in like, alright, I'll get you home or all you know, we'll take care of you. And and these are regular people I mean these are not rich people that disown private airplanes. I mean these are regular, everyday people that are just in bad situations and need some help. And you know, you realize that as you as you get older, I guess like how, how you know good that feels and how that's somewhat rewarding as a job, which is a huge difference than a lot of the other type of flying out there. So that's why I fell in love, I mean, that's why I really enjoyed it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Yeah, yes, yes, 100%, and that is what that's. One of the main reasons I made this podcast is for me, I got joy out of speaking to people and sharing their stories and hearing their stories and learning about all these different areas, because there's so many times I was seeing that people would just climb that corporate ladder, climb that corporate thing, and they just get stuck when it's like the kids house this, that and they're like yeah, I really love this.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Yeah, it's all wonderful things, but at the same time it's like yeah, what are you? You know you gotta work life balance right, and if you don't enjoy the work part of it, you're not gonna balance it right, I guess 100% because it's.

Speaker 1: 19:02

It's like what's the point? Like what's the point if we're not doing good things? And this is one of the reasons I want to bar on, because he talks that he's built an incredible life that he loves and, like you, want to be around people and you could feel that and it's infectious, because a majority of the time, people don't love their life, right.

Speaker 2: 19:20

Yeah, not Monday yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:23

So how do you think? So you get this job. And then you realize you get this job at the airport, you realize you don't like it. Yeah, what do you end up doing?

Speaker 2: 19:32

Well they, they did it for me. They were before I could even go to class and learn to fly. You know the actual airplane side. I did the ground portion of it and learn the company side of it. Before I could actually go to the simulator and learn the airplane, they were already starting to lay people off. You know they were over high. Airlines are very notorious for over hiring and then laying off, then over hiring and laying off. You know it's very common. I think it's. I think you're gonna see it happening here the next year or two, but Right now. But you know they hire too many people and before I could even get a slot in the simulator, they were. They were announced, they were laying people off and and I was dead last seniority at the time you know there was 90 some pilots in the company and I was number 90, something you know I was the last yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:12

I knew I was the number one to be laid off. So and I really already had realized that it wasn't something that really excited me and I didn't want to do it. So there was an air ambulance another air ambulance company that was starting up in clear water and I got wind of them and and they heard of me and they went up finding each other and I went to work for them and I did that for a year or so and and they were not a good company. They were the, the management peep, the structure, and out there were. We're not what I was used to.

Speaker 2: 20:40

I was used to working for a very professional, very good company and now all of a sudden, this was, and I had I was, I had no idea that they weren't all like that I just assume everybody's like that and Found out very quickly that they're not and it was a terrible company. So I worked there for a year or so and said, boy, I could do this better myself. Well, I'm not working for somebody else, I could just start my own company and run it the way I want to run it. I think I could do it better. And and so my air against kicked in and I said I'm just gonna go do it, and so I did. I started. That was in 2003.

Speaker 1: 21:10

That's incredible. And what was the thought process there with Realizing the business components? Because obviously you got the training in the flight school, but training the business, we all know, is a different animal. Like, how did you even go about that? Because I feel like that would be intimidating portion.

Speaker 2: 21:31

Yeah, you know it is. Ignorance is bliss, I guess maybe. Yeah, and you know I went to college For aviation. You take a lot of aviation classes, but then you have all you know. You got to find something to fill the. You know the other classes in the time and and I was just took a bunch as many classes as I could. So I had taken some business classes and accounting and stuff like that, but I don't know if I knew anything, to be honest with you, you know what I learned from it.

Speaker 2: 21:57

But so when I started my business in 2003, I was pretty clueless, to be honest with you. I knew the airplane side of it and I knew I knew how you know Operate the airplane and fly the airplane. And then and I was the pilot, I was the owner, I was the pilot, I had a business partner and he was the other pilot and it was just the two of us and and we talked a guy into leasing us an airplane with very little money we had and we just said let's give it a go. I mean, well, everybody else is losing their job in aviation right now. What's the worst that could happen is we could go out and do this and fail and lose our job. We probably lose our job working for any other company that we'd work for, so what's it matter?

Speaker 1: 22:30

so we just didn't know.

Speaker 1: 22:33

That's a huge, huge point the barge has brought up right there is because Most people don't realize that their job is that's one source of income, but if you build the business you could have ten sources, because different insurance companies, different people, different one People want to help you with it, different ones want to guide you and like there's a lot of different ways to make money with that. And I think it was Intellect. And also the other start at the beginning is what most people don't realize is that you are the employee, the manager and the owner. Yeah, you have to all three hats. It's not distinguish themselves. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 23:10

And you know the the hardest part is just starting. I mean you just gotta do it, you just gotta start. I mean I did, I didn't know. I mean I literally in 2003 probably sat down on my computer and googled you know how to start a business. I mean I didn't know and just follow some instructions and start doing it.

Speaker 2: 23:27

And you know we've done Failed in a lot of things. You know things you don't know about. You know with HR and payroll and taxes, and you know you think you're doing the right thing. I don't think anybody ever really intentionally, you know, screws up. But you do and you make a mistake. And then somebody comes in and says, hey, you're not doing this right. You learn the hard way and go crash. You know like that's what I'm supposed to be doing. You know, and then you kind of feel stupid for a minute. It's like why didn't I just do? Why did I know that? You know like, how did I? And but whatever I mean you fix it and you move on and and that's it's just sort of a natural process. I guess that's what happens.

Speaker 1: 24:06

Well, that's a huge lesson in its own capacity of Not being so hard on yourself, not being like I'm an ADM, so stupid I can't do this. In reality, you just have to sit there and think in that moment. Did I know that the taxes were due? Did I know that the IRA like I didn't know any of this? So how could I know?

Speaker 2: 24:27

Yeah, no, I mean you don't know. I mean I didn't know I have the stuff. I mean I thought I was doing it correctly. I even had at one point I had like a payroll company doing and I thought, well then, clearly this is perfect, you know. And but there's other things you just don't know, you don't realize you're supposed to be doing, and and then you know, I mean you know nothing's, nothing's, Anything you get, there's no anything you get in trouble for that. It's not recoverable. I mean you just kind of figured out, go man, you know I was supposed to be doing that and you fix it and move on. But yeah, there's all I use that as one example is all kinds of those things in business that you just you don't realize, you know you know what?

Speaker 1: 25:04

There's no way to know everything. There's too much going on directions to this day.

Speaker 2: 25:10

I'm we, we. We make mistakes and figure out oh man, we should have done it this way and and that is what it is. But so you're right. I mean, it's, there's so many options. Once you have your own business, you know there's so many different things you can do and you don't even realize that. You know, you. You, you started up thinking you're gonna do one thing and then a couple years in you're like boy, I can do this. You know, like now that I have this, you know infrastructure build, I'm capable of this, and and things just happen that you don't even think you didn't even we're going to be options at the time.

Speaker 1: 25:42

Yeah, and I think that's one of the coolest things is building out the asset. And you go who knew, yeah, we could do this like this is incredible, like I didn't expect for things to go these kind of ways. And what are some of these pivots that you had? And I'm also interested when you started in 2003, how do you think about picking a partner? Because that's that can be a challenging in its own capacity.

Speaker 2: 26:05

Yeah, that is. It's tough. Um, I Didn't know anything at the time again about, about a partner. I was flying with a guy who was a good friend of mine and he was a great guy that took to be buddies with at the time and we we started the business together and you know we knew nothing. So we started up 50, 50 and you know. So we're thinking like, oh, we'll work everything out right, will be, will be, and, and we just had very different ideas of where it was Going to go. We had very different ideas of who we should hire as employees and the type of resumes we should look at, and and how to, how we should treat them and how we should pay the way to set very different views.

Speaker 2: 26:44

And Nobody sits down At that, at that age anyway, I mean, I was 20, it was 2003 and it was at 26 years old, 25 years open, like that. I mean, nobody sits down. Nobody at that time sits down and, never having run a business before, looks at apartment, says hey, do we have the same attitude on Training? Do we have the same attitude on what? You just don't think about that. You just, you know we were buddies and thought, well, we, you know we we like doing stuff together, so let's run this business together. But ultimately, you know, we ran it for six years together and you grew further and further and further apart and our ideas of where we wanted to take it, what we wanted to do and just Attitude in general of how we were going to do things and what the future was.

Speaker 2: 27:26

So I kind of had an epiphany in like 2008 or nine, at the end of eight, early 2009, and said I went to him and said you know, either you buy me or I'll buy you, but one of us is going to take this in their direction and maybe neither one of them are wrong. Mines maybe not better than yours, but it's what I want. Yours is different than mine. So I ended up selling my half of the company to him in 2009 and then, not knowing again what I wanted to do, I was like, okay, maybe now's the time I go to the airlines, maybe things are better, and but I really liked air ambulance and I had a lot of people Employees that I had at the time that were sort of telling me like, hey, you really should just start another company like you, really like this and you're really, you know good at it. You know you just go start another one and run it your way. And so I did.

Speaker 2: 28:12

And at the time my mom was running her own business as a consulting company doing HR and payroll consulting. So I went to her and said, hey, do you want to start this thing together and you can do the the sort of the HR and the payroll side of it in the beginning and I'll do the airplane side of it and we'll start this and it's sort of evolved into what it is today. So, yeah, so my mom and I started this new company. So again, you know I didn't sit down as a partner and go, hey, what's your attitude on this? But you're my mother, you know what do you.

Speaker 1: 28:43

I Know but it's but it's kind of that trust area of like I think we have alignment on this. But the other major thing that you, I think on the second one that was really important that the audience can take away is Bart got somebody, even though it's his mom that had a completely different skill set from Bart, yeah, which is huge, because absolutely, and that's when you both have the same skill set? It doesn't.

Speaker 2: 29:08

Yeah, you know, if you take two people, I guess and I never really put, I guess a lot of thought into it, but you bring up a good point If you take two people that have the exact same skill set, eventually they're probably going to have a little bit different ways.

Speaker 2: 29:19

They want to do that right, whereas my mom, she's not a pilot, she's not an aviation or was not an aviation before other than through me. So you know, I run the aviation side of this and her skill set is the payroll and she's sort of evolved into running, managing the medical side of our company as far as the employees and that go, and she's really, really good at it. So you know, she runs that, which is really good. It's something that I like I can do and capable of, but it's definitely not not as big of a passion as the airplanes for me. So it lets me really, you know, put so much time and effort into the airplane side of it that I love and the pilot training and the you know, the hiring and that, and let's her do the other side of it and it works out incredibly well, actually works really well.

Speaker 1: 30:07

So yeah, definitely. And what was the thought behind when you started the second business, were you worried about the stealing customer? Like how not stealing? Like how did that work with, like marketing or you're just like onto a new business Like how did that go?

Speaker 2: 30:27

I sold my old company. I sold half of it and we negotiated for months and ultimately negotiated down to where I pretty much gave away. I mean, I had very, very little money out of it the pennies on the dollar, probably what it was, what the value would have had if I'm looking back at it. But but I didn't have a non-compete and it allowed me to basically leave or anything else. I wanted to do so and I didn't really know, I didn't really leave thinking I honestly I don't didn't think I was going to start another air ambulance company when we were negotiating and selling. And then all of a sudden, when I had a non-compete because I just figured I'd have a non-compete agreement and I would do something else in aviation and there's plenty of other opportunities. So but then at the end, you know, we settled for a lot lower price and got rid of the non-compete and I thought you know, yeah, let's do it. You know why not just start another airman that's company like I can do this and just do it all over again.

Speaker 2: 31:19

And my goal, you know, from the beginning or I didn't even know if, I'm not even sure if I knew it was my goal, but I know what I wanted was to start the company, build it up for you know, seven, eight, 10 years or whatever it took, and then sell it, you know, and try to sell it and make some money off of it but at the same time be a part of it and sell it to somebody else that can maybe take it, you know, to the next step or the next level and grow with it.

Speaker 2: 31:44

You know, as that side and my partner at the time didn't want to do that, you know. So that was a big contention and that's what I wanted with this company and my mom and I discussed that from the beginning. You know, we sort of laid out a plan and said this is what we could do in 10 years. This is what I think we, you know I already built this other one in six years. So you know, now I kind of have the roadmap and I know what I want to do. And so I started the company and and, like I said, I didn't have a non-compete. So I just called a lot of my old customers and said, hey, I'm starting this new company and you want to give us a shot? I'd appreciate it. And that's what we did. And we still have those customers today.

Speaker 1: 32:18

So, which is awesome. And how did you get that? How did you also for everyone listening a business to sell versus a business just to have another job are very, very different. Like there's different skill sets that need to be entailed. Like Bart can't be the only guy in a business to sell, yeah you got to find a way to work.

Speaker 2: 32:39

You know you got to find a way to work on your business, not just in your business, right? I mean that's you hear that a lot from people and and I'm still in it pretty deep. But you know, if you to start a business with any intention to sell, you know it's real easy to get get business and personal finances mixed, especially with small businesses. You know you have a company credit card and you buy hockey tickets with it and you try to say that it's a marketing thing. It's very easy to mix that up. In the beginning you got to be really, but we knew we were going to sell.

Speaker 2: 33:15

So we were very, very cautious and very concerned about the books and making sure everything that was on the books was absolutely perfect and make sure everything that you do is on the books, right? I mean that's a big thing for small businesses. You know it sounds like you know nobody is. I don't think anybody is nefarious or trying to cheat the system per se, but things just happen and then when you go to sell the business later it's a little bit harder to prove like, hey, this is what I'm really doing. You know it's like yeah, but why doesn't it show that? So we were very cautious from day one to make sure everything we did was on the books and everything was business and there was no personal stuff involved. So when we went to sell we had financials that we could really say, hey, this is what the business really is.

Speaker 1: 33:59

And was there any tips or tricks you utilized to keep it super separate, because I know that can be confusing.

Speaker 2: 34:07

Yeah, I don't know that it was any, if I thought of anything, because one of the ways.

Speaker 1: 34:14

I'll just let you know, like one of the ways I do it is basically you have the business bank account, obviously, oh yeah, absolutely. And then I just have like business credit cards that are completely like, but I also have personal credit cards, and you don't mix the two Absolutely, and that's key.

Speaker 2: 34:30

I mean you have to do that. No, no doubt about it, and you have to, you know, stay on top of it and make sure every little penny is accounted for and find some sort of accounting software that you like, that you're going to stick with and you're going to reconcile every month like clockwork, and yeah, I mean you have to do that. But yeah, you got to keep it separate.

Speaker 1: 34:52

You got to have a business credit card that's just for business and everything is documented and you're you know, and then how did you and I'm pretty sure most people are curious about this, but how do you even grow Like, who are your customers at that point? Like, obviously you have, because you said there are regular people who are in tough times. It's hard to target regular people in tough times.

Speaker 2: 35:17

Most of them are most of our customers anyway are either insurance companies or brokers in the business that are advertising case managers at hospitals, you know stuff like that that are sort of in the talking to the families and talking to the patients. You know, because our business I don't know if I really got into it, but our business essentially is people go on vacation or they go traveling for whatever reason. They're displaced from where they live and they wind up either having an accident or they wind up having some sort of medical condition that crops up and they wind up in a hospital. And now they're in a hospital and they can't go get on an airline and fly home. You know they're to the point where it's not possible to be on an airline. They're in a hospital bed or they have an injury or they have something and the only way to get home is to either recover where they're at and get to the point where they can go get on an airliner and come home, or have us come get them and we have a private airplane with a nurse and a medic in the back and a full set of ambulance hospital equipment and take care of that patient. We have a stretcher in the back of the patient's lay on. We're basically like a ground ambulance that is in the air. It's the same thing. So we fly over privately and we transport them back, and it can be wildly expensive depending on where they're. We fly everywhere in the world, so there's no where on earth really that you can get sick or injured that we can't come get you and bring you home with a few exceptions, but for the most part people like to, that's what happens.

Speaker 2: 36:49

So when they either in Americans we're terrible at insurance, right so everywhere else in the world, europeans and that when they travel, it's just natural for them to buy some sort of travel insurance and to ensure their trip and people in the US, you don't think about that. You don't think about it. You're just like I'm going to go to. We were just talking, you know, before we started this. We're talking about traveling to Europe and then going to Rome. You know, you don't think about it. I was going to go to Rome and hang out for a week or two or a month and I'm going to come home, but you don't think about it. If you trip in the middle of the street and get hit by a car or, you know you'd fall down a set of stairs. There's a lot less safeguards around things outside the US. You know we like to bubble wrap everything here, so you know the stairs that are slippery don't get fixed in Rome, you know. I mean they, just you know.

Speaker 1: 37:34

I remember, I remember a time when I was studying abroad and I went to Croatia and I was on this excursion and the excursion was a it was called canyoning and it's basically like you wear a wetsuit and you have this hat on and you're doing this whole thing and the lady goes and she's like, ah, lost the key. I'm like, okay, so now what? She literally lifts up the fence and she's like go underneath. And we didn't sign any waivers or anything. I'm like this place is crazy.

Speaker 2: 38:04

Yeah, but you know and that's you know, accidents happen, you know, and that's what happens. And then we fly a lot of people like that, but you know a lot of. You know group trips and that are insured, but it's a lot, it's just the private and that travel insurance.

Speaker 1: 38:20

Like I've gone on a couple trips to like Thailand, israel, all these are replaced. That travel insurance, literally for a week, is very, very cheap, like yeah yeah, super cheap.

Speaker 2: 38:33

I mean considering what it would cost to call me to come get you. It's unbelievable cheap. I mean it can be well into the over a hundred thousand dollar range to you know, to come get somebody in Europe and bring it back to the US, I mean it's, it's a, that's a pretty norm, easily can cost that, whereas a couple hundred bucks for some insurance that would cover it and then the, the other thing you think about, I mean you're, you're, you're fortunate at your age to be able to travel and do those things. But most people don't. Most people wind up finally having the money and the availability and that's a travel when they're older. You know, they're now a sudden.

Speaker 2: 39:06

I'm 65. I can now go on a cruise through the, through the Caribbean or through the Mediterranean and they have the health isn't as good and they wind up going on these excursions and doing things that they wouldn't normally do at home, and eating more and drinking more and staying up later and not, you know, out of their routine, and that's when medical problems occur, you know. So all of a sudden they're when they're old. So it's the older population A lot of times that that have the ability to travel and the money to do these kinds of things and don't think about the insurance, and or they have health insurance in the US and they just assume, like oh my health insurance will cover me if I get hurt and wrong.

Speaker 2: 39:46

Well, you probably won't.

Speaker 1: 39:49

I actually remember last year I was in Portugal and we went up the stairs. It was like one of these five flights up or something like. It was like a 50 story, yeah, Stair thing. But if you took the elevator all the way up you still had to go up like another three flights. Yeah, Seven years older at the rooftop and he was just on the ground and I'm like, yeah, how did this even happen? And he's like, oh, the altitude, like a sure dude, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 40:16

Yeah, I'm gonna help this man please, but so for the audience please get insurance if you travel.

Speaker 2: 40:22

Yeah, no doubt, I mean no doubt I. I, one of our, one of our biggest customers is one of the the best companies I work for is a company called MedGen Assist and they're out of Birmingham, alabama, and you can literally buy a year long membership for hundreds of dollars. I mean, it's cheap, you know, and it'll cover you anywhere in the world for the most part, with some exceptions. But you know, if you're more than 150 miles or so away from your home and you get hurt, they'll call me and I come get you and take you home and you don't pay a dime. You know, you just have a membership to this thing. It's. I mean I'm a member myself. Well, I mean, parents are members, I mean I. You know it's, it's on my list here. I wrote it down for a reason I'm talking to, to send you the information like, hey, if you're going to go on a trip, like, you need to be a member of this company.

Speaker 1: 41:07

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. We can put that in the show notes. And it kind of got me thinking, because I know every single trip, everyone's always, whenever you get like a big group, you're like oh, I hope no one gets hurt and we got a jet out of here because you don't realize it, because Bart's the guy coming to get you most of the time.

Speaker 2: 41:23

Yeah, I know I fly. I gave you an example, which is an interesting story. We had a woman who was you know, she wasn't, she wasn't elderly or anything. I mean I want to say she was in her sixties, great health, nothing wrong with her, and her husband had passed away. So she's now a widow and and she joins this club of other widows and and they start, they decide they're going to take a trip, and then they want to do this safari in Tanzania or something you know. I mean just a wild trip, you know, something that she'd never done. So she does and she plans this trip.

Speaker 2: 41:57

Well, she had a, she was a member of Medjed Assist and so she went on this trip and they were on a safari bus and they had stopped and she went to step off the bus and just stepped wrong and twisted her ankle, fell down and fell on a rock and broke her hip.

Speaker 2: 42:11

You know, complete accident. I mean healthy woman, nothing wrong with her, nothing whatever. And she just just took a wrong step in the middle of nowhere and I mean it was several hundred thousand dollars to bring her home and Medjed called us and just said how fast can you go get this woman and bring her back. I forget where. We even took her back in the US. But how fast can you get her back to the US? And within 48 hours we were, you know, in Northern Africa and working with another company that flew into the little dirt runway or wherever where she was at and brought her to us, and we ended up bringing her back to the United States within you know, three days, and she had a membership that probably cost her two, three hundred bucks, you know so the value is.

Speaker 2: 42:52

It's unbelievable. And on the other side of that coin I have flown people out of Europe that are refinancing their house and calling you know their four or five kids to put. How much money do you have on your credit card to get you know grandma home because she got you know hurt on a cruise ship and in Greece or something. So you know if you don't think about it and you're just stuck. So I've seen both sides of that coin and obviously being prepared is better.

Speaker 1: 43:20

But yeah, honestly, sounds like a good gift to anyone, yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:25

Yeah, it could be. Yeah, it's great. I've passed it on to everybody. Everybody talks to me and they tell me they're going on a cruise or they're going on the travel. I'm like what, if something happens to you, are you going to get home? You know, yeah, and think about that. You know that's just going to happen to me. I'm young and healthy.

Speaker 1: 43:38

You know like I do this for a living. Yeah, Most people think that they're young and healthy. Trust me, the business is doing well.

Speaker 2: 43:45

Like, yeah, right, yeah, we're not doing it on people who are healthy. So, yeah, I know it's a great thing and so that's our customers. I mean to kind of get back to that. You know the insurance companies who also be provided this type of coverage, or you know brokers who advertise on the internet or hospitals that you know. Yeah, we fly a lot of people also that hospitals pay for. You know you wouldn't Okay, Sort of something that people wouldn't think about. But you know we have and it's going to be, it's obviously going to be a bigger, bigger problem going forward.

Speaker 2: 44:20

But you have people who are illegal immigrants in the country.

Speaker 2: 44:24

If they get hurt or they get sick, and you know something happens to them and they wind up in a hospital.

Speaker 2: 44:28

If they don't have any family here and you know, and they get to be where they're in the hospital and they're stuck in that hospital for a long time. You know they could wind up in the ICU of a hospital who might only have a dozen ICU beds and here's a person with no insurance, no, nothing, and the hospital is not going to get compensated in any way for taking care of this person and if they're stuck there for months it might be cheaper just for the hospital to pay whatever it would cost to fly them back to their own country, you know, and let them get health care back at their own country. So you see that a lot we fly a lot of image of people that are in hospitals and the hospitals saying you know they're taking up one of our resources here that we're not able to. You know it's a business and we're not able to get any compensation for that. So sometimes the hospital will just pay us directly to you feel lost To fly them home. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 45:17

That's interesting and what was the thought when you first started? Because I believe you have six. Yeah, yeah, it's at this point. And what? What are these jets? So?

Speaker 2: 45:26

they're on their jets. It's sort of the workhorse in the air ambulance industry. It's a For the, for the money they cost and what they cost to operate the, the best airplane for the mission. And so we have six liter jets. We we're a little different than I. I Specialized in the long-distance transports.

Speaker 2: 45:46

So a lot of air ambulance companies may operate a different type of airplane or shorter range airplane and they specialize in just one area of the country and we really specialize in worldwide. So we'll fly to South Africa, pick somebody up and bring them back. You know we can really fly anywhere in the world. So we specialize in these long range airplanes. So they made the Lear 35, which is sort of the most popular you know Lear jet. They built almost 700 of them and they took that airplane and they made a very specific Variant of that airplane with a larger fuel tank in it and they called it a Lear 36 and they only built, you know, 60 of them.

Speaker 2: 46:24

So there's a very. They didn't build a ton of them, but they're the most popular airplane for me and we have four of those that we operate Internationally. We operate those all over the world and they have about a six hour range. So, oh Wow, one stop out of Florida, we can make one stop and get to Europe. We can, you know, two stops. We can get from Eastern Europe to Western United States. So we can, we can operate those on and they have the range to to go across the Pacific and to go, you know, down far South America. So that's the reason we operate that specific airplane.

Speaker 1: 46:55

That's cool. And what is the how does? I bet you people are wondering how does the whole financing of that work? Like, is there like, do buy them you like? Do you buy in brand new? What's the price?

Speaker 2: 47:12

An average Lear jet for the, the ones we operate, or anywhere between one, one and a half million Probably to body airplane and you can finance it. You know you can make payments every month. We've been fortunate. We know we leased our first couple airplanes. We leased In the guy that that I leased it from became a very, very good friend of mine and ultimately we ended up buying the airplanes at the end of the lease From him.

Speaker 2: 47:36

But and now you know we're in a position where if we wanted to add another plane tomorrow, we would, you know, we'd either dash or we would finance it. You know, depending on the on Right now, rates are not great. So but you know we've had, we have several financed right now. So and there's a bunch of different options out there and and so yeah, that's In in the airplanes require a lot of upgrades and maintenance. I mean it's nothing to own an airplane for four or five years and then have to put, you know, four or five hundred thousand dollars back into it with paint and engines and interior. I mean these are assets that are that last a long time. So you really can take a lot of. They're pretty heavy maintenance wise and expense wise, absolutely. You know we have, we have in as far as the business side of it.

Speaker 2: 48:20

We have separate accounts that we keep, you know, literally for each one yes, so not necessarily for each one, but sometimes we have a bank account for our engines or we just put money in every month and then when our engines come do, we're guaranteed we have the money to do that. That's smart, is up, and I'm sure that applies to a lot of other businesses that I just don't know about. But I mean as far as aviation Businesses go, you know you can. Some of these trips are very expensive, right, so we can do a hundred and fifty, two hundred thousand dollar trip. That the Bulk of the money we're taking in, we need to save for future maintenance of that airplane. Some of it is immediate costs, you know, fuel and pilots and payroll and all those kind of things, but some of that's the engine, and the engine might not be due for overhaul for another three years, but it's going to be four hundred thousand dollars when it is due. And if you're not saving for that and planning for that, if you're, if you're using that money to do something else right now when that bill comes due, you know you can then that happens a lot in aviation, you see, that a lot.

Speaker 2: 49:20

So we're I've always been very disciplined. In far as you know, we have separate bank accounts. We put that money in those bank accounts. That's not money that we look at as Available to us to use it for operations or payroll. I mean, that's money that we know we're gonna have to use later and then, when those things come, do we're able to have a good relationship with the shop and with the engine shop and with the, the maintenance shop, that because they know that you know we have the money set aside to do that and we just we could do the work and when it's done we pay it in full and you know that works really well for us and those relationships that we're able to build with those suppliers are invaluable.

Speaker 1: 50:00

Yeah, and I mean that's, you might be sitting there listening going. How is that relevant to me? It's relevant because things like engines, ac going out, that could be You're losing a job. That could be anything where it's just good to put money away and not spend every single dollar, because when you spend every single dollar, then you leave yourself exposed to much bigger issues.

Speaker 2: 50:23

Yeah, you know, and you talk about growth. You know how do you grow, how do you get bigger? Well, you buy more stuff. You know you invest in the company. So at the end of the year, you know if you've made money that year, what are you gonna do with that money? You're gonna take it out and just put it in your, your savings account, or you're gonna reinvest it in the company. And you got to figure out. You know how much do I want to put back into this company and grow it?

Speaker 2: 50:44

You see a lot of companies that every year you know, yeah, they made money, they did really well, you know they made. Maybe we made a million dollars this year and but you wind up taking that money and putting it right back into buying another asset or another whatever, or increasing Payroll or something. You put that money right back in the company and you can go 10 years in business and go man, I've made millions of dollars, but I don't have millions dollars in my pocket, you know. But you have this asset, you know. So now you have this, this functioning asset, that that's, that's that, that can. You know that makes money. And now what is that worth? You know, you just gotta kind of. There's a lot to it, I know. You know we, we grew this company and in man, the first couple of years, I mean it was sometimes we didn't even, weren't even able to pay ourselves. It was like, are we gonna have to sacrifice this to do this? And but you know that that's the way you grow it.

Speaker 1: 51:37

So you got to put back into the company and I just I'm glad you're sharing that, because there's probably a lot of people listening and going this guy's got six jets and like he's choosing between whether this or that, like yes, we all have to make choices and there's all sacrifices that go on and it's not always as glamorous. It's never as glamorous as people are. Like must be easy, like must be nice, because if you're running, yeah, if you're running six.

Speaker 2: 52:06

I just want to bring this up.

Speaker 1: 52:07

If you're, if you're running six jets, like, how many trips do you have to take? That that means they got to be moving constantly. Yeah, we did.

Speaker 2: 52:15

I Mean we move. I did, I did a number the other day. I thought this was a really interesting number for us. It's had this conversation we started in. Like December of 09 is when we flew our first patient flew, our first flight. We started with one airplane and then, when we made some money, we bought a second and grew and grew and grew and If you add up the amount of flight time, I think we've flown coming up on like 40,000 flight hours as a company. And if you divide that out by the number of days since we started at 09, we average about seven hours of flight time a day. So every day, you know, on average, some days we fly 20 and 30 hours a day between all of our planes and some days we don't fly at all, but we average about seven hours a day, which is which is a lot of flying, you know, for a small company like ours and that's over 13 years right, that's very very so.

Speaker 1: 53:04

That just proves that its consistency of coming up every single day because, yeah, a lot of people. Oh, you suddenly made it bar. No, no.

Speaker 2: 53:14

But yeah, no, we, but yeah we. We fly a bunch and we fly through Four or five patients, I think, on Tuesday with who for yesterday we're flying for today. You know we move patients every day. I mean that that's just the way it goes and, and you know there's some economies of scale, right. So when we start with one airplane, you can just do one trip and know that trips over. You know wherever you're at, that's, you know that's where you're available the next day.

Speaker 2: 53:37

Now we have five or six airplanes, so we have things moving around. We have an Ivan airplane today that's on its way to San Francisco. I have another one on the way to New York today, and when I get a call for a patient out of Cleveland that wants to go somewhere, I can go. Well, I have one on the way to New York right now. I'll just hop them to Cleveland tomorrow and use them and you can offer a little bit better price, but still a good price for me. So you know, once you start being able to combine these things and really putting this thing together, I mean it's it's no different than the truck driver that picks up oranges in Florida and takes them to Idaho and picks up potatoes and brings them back Right. I mean, when you can combine these things and put them together, when you start having the infrastructure to do that, there's a lot of opportunity and it gets. It's really good really fast.

Speaker 1: 54:23

Yeah, and most people don't realize that with Like the w2 life with w2. It's like you did your work, you got paid, you move on with the business owner, you can start playing with the different assets and then trusting them and changing things, and maybe we could do this. And if that flight from Florida to Cleveland was regularly 10 grand now it might be Like you can get, you can get them at the lowest price, for five grand, and they don't. They don't know like I do it all the time, you know.

Speaker 2: 54:56

I mean, you know none of our competitors can do it for any less than this, you know. So I can charge just a little bit less than that, still be advantageous to everybody and and we can do better. You know so. And then that that gives us the option to. You know we're now when we run into somebody who needs to go somewhere that doesn't have the money to do it or doesn't have as much and and we can say, oh well, we can, we can combine you with this. You know, and this, this trip is already getting paid this much money, so we can combine you and do this for a lot cheaper, you know, maybe to help somebody out or something. So there's a lot of options there, and we do that all the time. We combine things to help people.

Speaker 1: 55:33

So that's incredible because that brings into the community service aspect and the charity and like Giving back, because there's so many people that like when you do, you have enough and you can support. It's not always hey, the payment's not always the payment. Sometimes it's like we just got to make this work. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 55:52

Yeah, yeah, I mean, you don't have a choice. Sometimes, you know, and you're putting a we've. We've done several, we've put in a position when we had the airplane. We're in position, we're ready to do it. Covid was a big part of that, was a lot.

Speaker 1: 56:03

How? How was that for you regarding because you're worldwide? Like yeah, you go to still be worldwide. Or like how did that even work?

Speaker 2: 56:12

We were capable in some aspects, but there was no international travel.

Speaker 2: 56:16

You know the people weren't there the american Population was not traveling in Europe, the european population was not traveling in the united states. Um, even simple stuff the canadians were not traveling to florida. You know, canadians, uh, have government health insurance and so if they're in canada and they get sick or injured, they just go to a hospital and it's paid for, right. But if they're traveling somebody's you know, here in florida I mean, how many snowbirds are here in florida? How many canadians are here in the wintertime right now? I mean it's crazy. But uh, if in, if the way it sort of works in canada, from a very simplistic view, is If a canadian isn't, it's here in florida and they get sick or they get uh, uh injured and they wind up in a hospital, the canadian health insurance system will pay for anything that's that's Emergent or diagnostic. So somebody has a heart attack at their home in fort mires, the ambulance to pick them up and take them to the hospital we paid for. Any emergent intervention will be paid for any Diagnostic like hey, you, you've had this and that will be paid for. But once it hits that treatment phase, okay, now you need our bypass or you need, you know, something done. Uh, that's no longer paid for now. So now they're sort of on their own and the way canadians do it, as a lot of times they'll buy their own specific health insurance policy, uh, through a canadian company that will pay for that additional that the government, you know sort of make up for what the government won't pay for. When they're down there and receiving treatment at a hospital and say fort mires can be Expensive, right, I mean so, and it may be cheaper for that insurance company just to call me and say, hey, for 25 000 dollars, can you just fly them back to toronto, you know, and get in a canadian hospital where we can have treatment there, and now we don't have to pay for the treatment in florida. So we fly a ton of snowbirds from florida that are injured. For those canadian insurance companies that it's cheaper to pay them, fly them home and get health care there than it is to pay for the health care here in florida. So we do that a lot.

Speaker 2: 58:12

Well, sudden covid happened and now they're not allowed to be here and then they're not traveling and and you know there's a huge part of our business it's just gone. So you know, we pivoted a little bit and we started flying a lot of domestic flights that we hadn't done before. We started flying more and more organ transport flights around the us People that needed organs or organ transport teams, you know. So we sort of it was still a huge hit to our business. So we started pivoting to do more of that. Well, now covid's kind of over and now we're back to doing what we do, but we still we're still doing the stuff to do during covid. So it's a growth thing for us. So we're busier now than we ever were. Uh, sort of because of that, even though it was it was a huge hit at the time.

Speaker 2: 58:53

Yeah but you just got to make the best of it and try to I think that's.

Speaker 1: 58:58

That's something that a lot of us don't look at when you look at it. So I mean, people can look at one or two ways. Right, there's a challenge and you could say, yes, I'm open to the opportunity. Or you could be like bend and be like no, like we're not gonna make it. But obviously you guys were open to it and you're like how are we gonna make this work?

Speaker 2: 59:14

Like yeah, that's the hard part. I mean, as a business owner, you don't have a choice. I mean you got 30 or 40 people that you know Rely on you. You got to pay them. Their paycheck is what's? You know Getting them, you know paying their bills. So it's like, okay, we got to figure something out here Um one way or another. I mean we're fortunate, we're pretty, pretty lean company, we're pretty frugal. I mean we, we that we keep plenty, quite a bit of money and savings for for things like that and and during covid Although we hated every second of it and it sucked, I mean we were never in a bad financial position.

Speaker 1: 59:45

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 59:46

I mean had to dig into money that we never thought we would have to use, but we did so, so it worked.

Speaker 1: 59:53

But 100 and for you, how do you think about? Because earlier in the podcast you mentioned that you went to another medical company and you're like they just weren't run well.

Speaker 2: 1:00:09

So what do?

Speaker 1: 1:00:09

you think is some of the intangibles that some people might find that you do well that could carry into their lives. What are some of the things that you're doing? A little bit.

Speaker 2: 1:00:20

For me for that situation. Anyway, a big piece of that was the maintenance of the airplane. The first company I worked for was very open. As an employee, you could just go to the people who ran the company and go, hey, you need to do this, this airplane needs this, or whatever, and they would do it. You felt heard. I guess you felt like what you said needed to happen would happen. Then the other company that I worked for they could care less, the stuff could be broken and they could say tough, go do it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:56

As a business owner, you got to have a good system where the people can bring ideas and you can say, hey, we're going to implement this or we're going to try this. It doesn't always work because a lot of employees think why don't they just do this? It sounds really simple, but it's not. But sometimes. So you have to have a system where you can show them yeah, we're going to implement this, we're going to do this change and we're going to try to do this, or have a really good explanation of, hey, look, we've tried this before. This is why it doesn't work, this is why we're not doing this. But if you don't have something where they can say, hey, this needs to happen, and they feel like it gets ignored. Then you're never going to. It's hard. You can't listen to everything. There's so many. You drive yourself crazy trying to fix every little thing that everybody thinks that you could do better. But you got to find the big things and make it seem.

Speaker 1: 1:01:54

I'd appreciate the feedback loop instead of being like, no, we like, and it's the way people talk about it and it's that being heard, I think, is a massive lesson. So prior to the podcast, we were talking about your incredible flight coming up around the world. Yeah, tell us a little more about this.

Speaker 2: 1:02:16

Yeah, so this is exciting. This is something that I've thought about for a long time and I love when things come together for a good reason and they all make sense, and this one just really makes sense to me and it's something I'm really excited about. So I read a book called the First World Flight and it was written by a guy that was a journalist that wrote about the first circumnavigation of the earth by airplane, by a fixed wing airplane. So in the 1920s there was sort of a race for which country could get a team of people in an airplane and fly all the way around the world. Naviation was young and it was. You know, we just started flying in like 1903, right, so we're less than 20 years into this thing. And the British were trying it, the French were trying it and nobody had really been successful at it yet.

Speaker 2: 1:03:06

So the US Army Air Corps at the time was tasked by the government to put together a team of airplanes and a team of guys to fly around the world. And they did it out of Seattle and they started their journey. Their very first day of flying out of Seattle was April 6th of 1924. April 6th just happens to be my birthday, so I'm reading this book and like, oh, that's really cool. They started on my birthday, you know 1924. And then I'm like, in 1924, that will come up on 2024. It's going to be 100 years. So my birthday this year is going to be the 100 year anniversary of this first flight around the world. And they were successful, took them, you know, 175 days or something. Oh wow, took them a long time to get around the earth. You know they were very old, slow airplanes and you know it was. It wasn't as many airports and runways and the infrastructure wasn't there. So it was amazing what they did.

Speaker 2: 1:03:56

But here I am, I'm going, man, you know I've flown around the world several times, you know, for work. You know, taking a patient here and then the next patient just happens to be further west or further east and you just end up going around the world Like man. I've done it a couple of times and although it's an incredible thing, it was easy. I mean, I didn't even think about it at the time. And here's the. Here are these guys I'm reading this book. You know that are, you know, doing this in the 1920s.

Speaker 2: 1:04:17

So I got this idea. I'm like, boy, we could, why don't I put together a trip with one of my airplanes and we could try to fly around the world. So I started researching the speed records out there and who's done this in the past and what is the record, and I thought you know. So I looked up the westbound record flying westbound around the world and like, well, we could, we could do that, we could set that record. And so then I got hooked up with some guys that used to work with ex-employees and current employees of Bombardier and Learjet, who have put this project together called the Classic Learjet Foundation, and they actually went out and found the very first Lear 23 that was ever sold to the public. Serial number three was a hand-built airplane built in the 60s, early 60s, and they found this airplane over in Barto, florida and it put together an organization to purchase this airplane, disassemble it, take it back to Wichita, reassemble it into like a flying museum piece and like the old V17s and stuff you see at air shows. So I got hooked up with these guys and I helped them disassemble this airplane and get it back to Wichita.

Speaker 2: 1:05:20

We're now in the process of raising money to refurbish this airplane and put it back in flying condition, which I would love to do and I'd love to be able to fly and ride on all these days. So I came up with this idea boy, I could do this flight around the world, I could set this record. It could be on my birthday, it could be the 100-year anniversary and it could be we could do as a fundraiser to raise money to refurbish this airplane. So that's where we're at. So we're doing this flight.

Speaker 2: 1:05:47

I'm going to leave Wichita in one of my airplanes on April the 4th and we're going to fly westbound around the world. We're going to land back in Wichita on April 6th, which is my birthday, and it's also going to be the 100-year anniversary of when the first flight for circumnavigation left out of Seattle. So it's just kind of a full circle thing that everything's kind of lining up and it's really exciting for me. So that's one of the projects that I got going on right now is planning this. So it's me and four other people that are going to be in this airplane and we're going to rotate out and we got a bed in the back of the airplane so we can rest and fly and trade off back and forth, and we're going to make 10 stops and just fly westbound around the world and set the speed record doing it.

Speaker 1: 1:06:31

That's incredible and that's so fun too, because it's something so unique. And this is kind of the stuff I'm talking about, because I've realized that so many people get bogged down by life where they're just oh, dude, can't wait for the vacation, can't wait for this, can't wait for that. And it's like, dude, find your vacation, create your trip, create your experience, because there's only so many things, and what Bart is talking about is a fantastic example of creating his own experience.

Speaker 2: 1:07:04

And the opportunities as a business owner. As a business owner, those opportunities are there. It's definitely helped me being a business owner to have those opportunities for sure. So opportunities that I don't think I would have had as just an employee working for an airline or something.

Speaker 1: 1:07:22

Cool, because then you got to ask the favor. Can I rent the jet for a month, a week or two days?

Speaker 2: 1:07:26

or whatever.

Speaker 1: 1:07:28

Yeah, yeah, exactly, I mean it's a very cool, very cool you also don't have that expansive thought of like wait, this would be really cool. It's really really cool. Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 2: 1:07:40

I was reading this book at home, thinking and like catching this idea in my head, like I could just go do this, and I'm like, no, that's crazy. Like what are you thinking of? And I'm like, no, I could do it. I mean, why can't I do it? I mean, physically, it's easy. I mean, we know how to do it, we got the resources, we have the people, we have the knowledge. Why couldn't we do this? This isn't crazy.

Speaker 1: 1:08:03

So yeah, it's exciting, it's interesting 100%, and that's something that you start to realize that every single one of you has assets with you, whether they're your mindset, your body, whatever it is where you can do incredible things, like Bart's talking about. Like it's not like, oh, it was cool for Bart. No, I want Bart to be an example or an inspiration for you listening? To come up with something that's like yo, what would be my flight around the world?

Speaker 2: 1:08:30

Like everyone's, you know what I mean, yeah, the hardest part is just doing it right. The hardest part is just saying you're going to do it and then do it.

Speaker 1: 1:08:37

Yeah, I followed through on your word Absolutely, absolutely. That's kind of that. That's totally great, thank you, thank you. Too many Mari's talking about this, I'm afraid Hello say hi. Hey there, dearie, how's going good? Bart, you're incredible man. You're absolutely incredible. Where can people learn more about global Jack care and like do you have any final things you want to touch on?

Speaker 2: 1:08:54

Boy. I mean we're like I said, we're based, just know, the Tampa here in Brooksville, florida, the center of the universe up here, and I would just if anybody is ever interested in airplanes or aviation, I love to share aviation. I have a Boy Scout group that I run with kids, you know, to try to help them learn about the opportunities in aviation, and I'm very available and open if anybody has any interest in aviation whatsoever, whether it's. I mean people think this is crazy, but I've had people who are not in aviation at all, who are working installing air conditioning or doing some other job, and then they in the past and have called me and said I'd love to do, I'd love to be a pilot like what you guys do.

Speaker 2: 1:09:42

And I said man, you know, go get your pilot size literally within two years. You know you could come to me and I could hire you and you could be on a mission flying to Greece tonight to go pick somebody up. And I've done it. I've had multiple employees that are now with the airlines, are with you know somewhere else that they've moved on to, that have come in and started from nothing and within two years they're working for me and work for me for three or four years and gain all this experience, and then they can do anything they want. So if anybody has any interest in aviation whatsoever, I mean I can point you in the right direction. It's a pretty interesting thing to do, so.

Speaker 1: 1:10:19

Absolutely. And just to give a little more context about the pre flights, all of that stuff, like to get your private license, what do you think the cost around there would be? And then like, what does that look like? Slash like how many times are they going up? Because I know the Davis Island one. I think the pre flight was like $200 or something and like they bring you up and down and you can do.

Speaker 2: 1:10:45

Yeah, you can do like what's called a discovery flight and that's the thing to do and there's somewhere between 100 and 200 bucks, you know, and it's a, it's a 30 minute flight, you know where? You just go out with an instructor, they throw you in the seat, start the airplane and take off and say this is what it's like, this is what it feels like, this is what you would be doing if you were taking a lesson today. I would be showing you this and you would be learning this. And you know, and it's just a hey, you know, a lot of people had to send their kids for discovery flights and that just to see if it's something they have, you know, see if that bug is there, see if they have any interest in it, and that's a super easy, cheap thing to do to. But to actually learn it, it's just like learning anything else. You know, if you do it every single day, you learn it really quick. I mean, you pick up on it really quick.

Speaker 2: 1:11:24

I was a flight instructor for years and I've had hundreds of students over the years and the ones that want to fly twice a day, every day, and have the resources to do that and are there in the morning to do the ground school and then a flight, and then lunch and then another flight and then more ground school. Those people within 20 or 30 days are have their pilot's license. I mean, it's really simple and because you do it so fast, that's the cheapest way to do it. You could probably do that somewhere in the under $20,000. I mean, it's probably a $15,000 thing, you know, realistically.

Speaker 2: 1:11:58

But then there's other people that want to fly the second Tuesday of every month and you're never going to get it done. You know, you just not. It's hard to retain, especially you know somebody who's, you know, wants to get older. It's just harder to retain. But so I tell everybody, I'm like, if you really, if you have the opportunity, if you have the ability to just dive in and do it like more than once a week, do three or four times a week, if you have the ability to do that, within a month or so you can get your private pilot's license and you can get it for the most in it. It's still nothing's cheap, but it's still the most inexpensive way of doing it.

Speaker 1: 1:12:32

But the important thing I think you bring up there that a lot of people don't realize is like all skills are acquired, it's just the amount of reps we take. And when you sit there I kind of think about it. I'm like, damn, I still haven't done my discovery flight and I'm 28 years old. I've wasted so much of my life not getting that first rep in, because in reality most things you can get pretty good in in like 20, 30 hours and it's just are you able to put in? When do you put in those hours? And we usually delay in our life that first hour, and I'm not, I'm saying like part of it. I want the audience to realize that it's like, yes, half of this is like fly a plane, that would be cool. But it's also do the hobby that you've been pushing off, do the thing that you've been pushing off, because there's no reason in life, there's no better time in life to start the now.

Speaker 2: 1:13:25

Right, absolutely, it's super important, especially if anybody, if people have an interest in aviation now is like such an incredible time. It's a, it's a different, it's the most amazing time I've ever seen in aviation. You know, the opportunities are there, like, like I said, you could go from absolutely nothing to having a really good. I mean I have, you know, I have people that I know in aviation and employees that they work for me that are well over 100, 150, even $200,000 range and they just started flying two, three years ago. You know, I mean I mean they just started and then they knew nothing about it and and you know, you don't, you don't have necessarily have to go to college for it and you don't have to go to whatever. It's just one of those things that you can learn it. And then only because there's such a huge demand for it right now, I mean now is such a good time to get into this thing. It's, it's crazy, it's different than it ever has been.

Speaker 1: 1:14:20

But definitely, and it's what people don't realize is it's a skill that you acquire. Oh yeah, it's for the skill.

Speaker 2: 1:14:27

You can ride a bike and drive your car. You can learn the flying airplane. I mean, it's not. You know, depending on now, now how far you want to go and how much you want to learn. And now you know how you know what you want to know. It takes more and more. You know desire.

Speaker 1: 1:14:41

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:14:43

But the first part just learning to fly and do whatever is is is a fairly simple task. You know, if you're capable of doing it, you know there's some people that are terrified of the flying, terrified of heights and whatever. That's not going to work. But if you if you don't have those issues you can. You can learn it pretty easily and it's pretty easy to do and it's a lot of fun and it lasts forever. You know pilot's license doesn't expire. You know you got to keep it current and do a few things to keep keep your skills up. But you know, once you have it, you have it.

Speaker 1: 1:15:11

Yeah, and it's a skill set that you can always bring around, and the idea of being like, oh, I could just go from Tampa to Miami or Fort Lauderdale or Key West for a burger and fly back is like a fascinating concept.

Speaker 2: 1:15:25

Absolutely. Yeah, I mean it's. You'd be amazed, driving around little airports, how many people just own their own little airplane. You know weekend hobbies, even here in Brooks ville, and you go out to the over to the we have some tea hangers over here and you'll see a dozen people with their hangar doors open and working on their airplanes. And you know, and it just, it's a community, it's a, it's a pretty cool thing.

Speaker 1: 1:15:48

Yeah, Absolutely, and most people sit there and they go oh, this has got to be the most expensive thing ever and it's like no, if you want to do the hobby, you can learn about it and you can get exposure, but it could also make a lot of money too, which is yeah, I bet several of my friends are like, ah, it's probably really expensive.

Speaker 2: 1:16:05

And then I look at their boat and look at what they do, you know their weekends and I'm like, oh, let me tell you, nothing's cheap. There's no cheap hobby out there.

Speaker 1: 1:16:12

Yeah, exactly, but the learning process, and I think it's very good to continue learning like even if it's in your craft or outside of your craft, because it allows you to understand people that are different from you, which is the most important.

Speaker 2: 1:16:27

Yeah, right, and it's so. The information is so widely available. Now, I mean, there's I, to this day, watch YouTube videos on flying and on you know the. If you get any idea, like, oh, I wonder what this is or wonder how you learn this, I just go to YouTube and I type it in and all of a sudden here's a guy that's got a 20 minute you know class on it and I'm like, perfect, that's all I needed, you know so, it's so easy to do. Now, you know, as far as learning to fly, and that everything is just so accessible and so easy, I'm like it. Just now is the time.

Speaker 1: 1:16:59

Absolutely so, bart. Where can people hear more about you? Hear more about Global Jet, would you say, your website?

Speaker 2: 1:17:08

Yeah, it's.

Speaker 2: 1:17:08

Yeah, we have a website. It's globaljetcarecom. All of our information is there. You can actually track our airplanes there. You know you can. All of our airplanes are open to be tracked so you can click on it and, kind of, you can see where we're going. You can see a lot of what we're doing.

Speaker 2: 1:17:22

I'm a terrible social media guy. I'm just. I've never been involved in it. In fact, literally when I'm done with this podcast, I'm meeting with another guy, one of our pilots, who's phenomenal at it, to to get him to take over our social media and our Facebook and then sort of get some more information out there on us, because I'm just I've never been into that. But but yeah, we do actually have a Facebook page and I think you're coming up. You're going to see a lot of stories posted of places we're going and things we do.

Speaker 2: 1:17:49

You know the logistics behind some of the stuff we do is is mind blowing sometimes. I mean just to move somebody from one part of the world to the other. Pilots have time limitations on how how many hours we can fly and how many hours we can be on duty, but once we put a patient in the back of that airplane, we can't just stop and take him to a hospital and wait for the pilots to rest and then keep going the next day. So if we pick a patient up and say you know Greece and we're flying them to LA, you know we'll have to pre position pilots, you know, out on the road somewhere to be ready to go, you know. So the one set of pilots will go pick up the patient and they'll make a stop in route somewhere. We got to change pilots out and then keep going. So the logistics of getting these people in place, you know it can take eight or 10 people, you know, out on the road in position somewhere waiting just to move somebody from one point to another.

Speaker 1: 1:18:42

So, honestly, what would be really cool because I do a lot of social media, so like, after this podcast, I'll clip it up and I'll connect with you guys and I'll show you an email and get you all that but what would be really cool is like all your pie, all of your pilots, if you get them linked up with your Instagram, like they don't have to have their own Instagram, but then they could just switch accounts and it's like good morning from Thailand and then it's like good afternoon from Tampa, like blah blah, blah, blah blah and you got like things all over the world.

Speaker 1: 1:19:13

Everyone look at that. What are these guys doing?

Speaker 2: 1:19:15

Because it's going to be on the account that would be cool.

Speaker 2: 1:19:18

I get on my Facebook. You know, I get on in the morning, I wake up here and I'm looking at my mail and I open Facebook up. Of course, I'm friends with all the people, all the employees on Facebook. So I pull it open and you know, I got some people in Germany and I got one crew that's in Iceland and they're posting pictures of what they're doing and they're and they're talking about you know what they're doing, and I'm like man, why don't I, why don't I have this on my? You know, how do I get this over? And I'm just, I have no clue, as when it comes to a lot of social stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:19:43

So it wouldn't even have to be you, it would basically be them posting on. That's what I mean.

Speaker 2: 1:19:48

I'm like I have one of my pilots that does it all the time and he a lot of times he'll tag us in it and it'll show up on ours and I'm like, okay, you got to, you got to take this over and get this so that it's all, because it's just. The pictures alone are awesome. You know, some of the pictures that we take, that our pilots take you know the aerial ones.

Speaker 2: 1:20:08

Yeah, it's amazing and the stories you know, and, and then a lot of times you know, like I said, the people we fly are everyday people. I mean, these, these aren't, you know, celebrities or anything. These are everyday people that, when they get back home, are posting on their Facebook, right, and they're telling their story. They're posting on their social media like, hey, my husband and I were in Greece and this happened to us and you know we have this private legit, come and fly us home. And here's the people that flew us. So all those stories are out there, but they're just not, you know, in a in a we just need them to know that it's global jet care so so, yeah, so that's.

Speaker 2: 1:20:42

I'm working on that, slowly but surely.

Speaker 1: 1:20:45

Absolutely, absolutely. Bart, you are incredible. I'm so glad we got to do this, just because I've been telling him wanted to do for a while and after I heard your story I was like I don't know anyone who does this Like. This is fascinating. It's so different, so unique and I'm glad you got to come on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:21:02

Yeah, if he was on time. They're like what do you do for a living, what you know, what's your company do? And I'm like oh man let me how do I explain this?

Speaker 1: 1:21:09

Well, hopefully now you just hand them the podcast. Yeah, right, there you go.

Speaker 2: 1:21:12

Here, listen to this, look at our social media Well, thanks.