Flying High

Our President Flies His Own Friendly Skies

Living in Southern California, as everywhere, has its ups and downs. The beaches, mountains and deserts draw visitors from all over the world and provide major decompression for residents. Aside from those natural escapes there are those places of fantasy and fun we've created to distract us and compensate for the other reality of the life here, including, but not limited to, the traffic.

You learn to live with the crowded freeways, adjusting your plans and schedules to accommodate the traffic patterns. On the other hand, you could learn how to fly an airplane...

Craig Nelson, President and CEO of Mission Controls, brought his private pilot's license with him when he moved to Southern California from Wisconsin, where he got his start in the automation controls business, and in piloting. "I reasoned that in a business involving lots of travel from job site to job site, piloting would be a valuable skill, and being able to travel by private airplane would be an effective tool."

The addition of flying skills to the résumé of a busy successful engineer and businessman is a natural. Flying, especially at the level to which Nelson has taken it, draws on the mentality that would lead a person toward the engineering disciplines. The meshing of procedures with technology, checklists and predicatable outcomes, mechanical sounds and smells, the immutable forces of lift, gravity and thrust, and hours of training all appeal to a mind the likes of Nelson's. Furthermore, the schedule that drives success in a modern small business must drive as little as possible: the value of time spent in a traffic jam can only be forced to the profit column through a cell phone, which is dangerous and may yet someday become criminal.

Nelson has not stopped with a private pilot's license, but has trained and licensed his skills to higher levels, with Instrument Flight Rules, Commercial Pilot, and Multi-Engine ratings added to his ticket. Now Nelson is able to fly himself, other Mission Controls employees, customers and vendors in sleek, twin-engine, pressurized-cabin comfort at high speeds, to faraway destinations.

"I'm not limited to close-in job sites in Southern California anymore, as I would be with the slower aircraft," Nelson says. "Now Washington and other Pacific Northwest jobs, Idaho, even Texas are all within range. As I originally thought, piloting is indeed an effective tool, especially now that I can fly longer distances, faster, and in less than perfect weather."

Is it worth it? Nelson thinks so. Although Mission Controls has yet to purchase its own aircraft, Nelson says that's a distinct possibility. "Flying on commercial airlines is very limiting, and expensive, for someone who has to travel as often, and as spontaneously, as I do. I may be working in the Portland area, with a commercial airline ticket to Boise in my pocket and be suddenly called to Stockton. The cost of making spontaneous changes to commercial airline tickets, even when that's possible, is very high. If, on the other hand, I have an aircraft that flies at almost 300 miles an hour sitting on the apron at a little airport near the job site, I can respond with more flexibility."

How about the safety issues involved with piloting? "Well, statistically, the most dangerous part of any flight I make is that roadway between my office and the pad where I've parked my airplane. If I make it that far without an accident, the odds are all with me."

And the cost? "Sure, it costs a lot to rent a high-performance airplane," Nelson admits, "but what's my time worth? And if I have to take a couple of other Mission Controls employees with me, we have to factor in those air travel costs as well. It can work out very nicely."

Aside from the potential cost benefits and the flexibility the company gains from Nelson's piloting ability, there is the added value that the company's customers recognize Nelson's high qualifications as a pilot, and that helps build trust. "Our business relationship with our customers is built entirely on trust," says Nelson. Our customers trust us to have the technology they need, and to apply it to their benefit, always. I guess when I fly into a job site with three other Mission Controls employees aboard a silvery twin-engine airplane, the customer can rightly feel that we have pulled out the stops to get there, and to get the job done right. Many factors help build a customer's confidence in us, and I believe piloting is among those factors."

Nelson has about 2,000 hours, and Mission Controls has a flying president in whom we take considerable pride.