Executive Beechcraft Celebrates 70 Years in General Aviation and the Kansas City Community
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Executive Beechcraft at Charles B. Wheeler Airport (MKC) in Kansas City, Mo.A lot can happen in 70 years – and it has! The price of a new car, for example, averaged $763 in 1938. Fueling that car cost about 20 cents per gallon. Change isn’t new. Having a front row seat to that change is monumental – and something Executive Beechcraft has enjoyed for seven long decades leading up to its Nov. 15 Anniversary celebration.
Since 1938, Executive Beechcraft, Inc. has been an integral part of the Kansas City and St. Louis communities. In fact, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and Missouri Governor Matt Blunt noted the company’s business leadership and longevity in both states with official proclamations declaring November 15, 2008, as Executive Beechcraft Day.
Today, the company is considered one of the most well recognized general aviation fixed-base operators in the country, specializing in aircraft sales and support, maintenance, avionics and aircraft management. Outside the aviation industry specifically, Executive Beechcraft likely touched the lives of many Kansas and Missouri individuals in those same 70 years – whether it was a neighbor learning to fly, a child watching his or her first air show or a dad leaving for a business trip.
“We’ve been here through it all,” said Ed Chevrestt, Vice President and General Manager of Executive Beechcraft. “In fact, EB’s downtown Kansas City facility even dates back to the founding days of Trans World Airlines (TWA), where Howard Hughes himself had an office!”
For corporate America, Executive Beechcraft has long helped business and industry climb to success with an unmatched business tool – the airplane. Even before corporate aviation earned widespread attention, Executive Beechcraft had a hand in early business air travel – especially with the entrepreneurial community for which Kansas City is known.
Additionally, Executive Beechcraft’s heartland location has served it well – particularly its downtown Kansas City facility at the Charles B. Wheeler Airport. As general aviation, corporate and cargo/freight aircraft navigate cross country, Executive Beechcraft is geographically centered as an ideal midway point for refueling and crew rest, as well as providing aircraft maintenance when needed. In fact, in the shadows of Kansas City’s bustling downtown skyline, as many as 700 aircraft per day take off or land at this airport, originally dedicated by Charles Lindbergh back in 1927.
But it’s not all business at Executive Beechcraft. The company is vitally involved in civic, charitable and community efforts such as Challenge Air, which introduces physically handicapped children to aviation; Angel Flight Central, which arranges free non-emergency flights for patients and their families to specialized medical treatment across the country as well as disaster response and compassion flights; and Midwest Transplant Network, which provides air transport of life saving organs to patients in need of a new heart, kidney or liver.
Of course, Executive Beechcraft has experienced its own change over the years. The company that began as a family business was sold in 2007 and is now a part of BBA Aviation, a global provider of aviation services and flight support based in London.
More change is on the way for EB, with a renovation now in progress at its downtown flagship facility. The project is expected to be complete in early 2009.
“The EB family is a great team with a proud 70-year tradition,” Chevrestt said. “Seventy years in this competitive business is a testament to company founder Dan Meisinger, Sr., and the people who have made EB a success.”
In addition to celebrating its 70th anniversary at the downtown Kansas City facility, Executive Beechcraft will be celebrating at each of its three other locations: Kansas City’s International Airport (MCI), Johnson County’s New Century Airport (IXD) and Spirit of St. Louis Airport (SUS).