Airport Business

APR 2013

The airport professional's source for airport industry news, articles, events, and careers.

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business profle ACI Builds a Bright Future The how and the why behind this FBO's accelerated growth path on California's Central Coast By Steven Ells a viation Consultants Incorporated (ACI) set up shop at McChesney Field (KSBP) in San Luis Obispo in 2003 when it purchased a fuel vendor on the field. In the decade since that auspicious beginning this company, led by owner William Borgsmiller, has grown and expanded in impressive fashion. ACI has morphed from simply a fuel provider into a company with more than 70 employees built around three divisions. In short order, ACI expanded out of a line shack for the fuel crew into a nearby 10,000 square-foot hangar, 24 airportbusiness April 2013 built a charter base, dispatch center and pilot lounge building adjacent to that hangar, and in the fall of 2010 finished constructing a 35,000 square-foot maintenance hangar located at the southeast end of the airport. A Single-Minded Pursuit Borgsmiller, 36, says he became "the black sheep" of his family of medical practitioners by announcing at age 4 that he was going to be a pilot. By his 18th birthday, he had all the ratings needed to fly charters, and while flying and working he obtained his college degree in 2 1/2 years. After graduating from EmbryRiddle in Prescott, Ariz., Borgsmiller flew charters in Redding before relocating to San Luis Obispo (KSBP). ACI first focused on aircraft management services. Andrew Robillard, ACI vice president of FBOs and Facilities, notes the Central Coast location was wide open for large-scale development of turbine aircraft management and charter services. "The area has a lot to offer," he says. The term "Central Coast" refers to lands located between Salinas and Monterey to the north and Santa Barbara to the south. Its large investments in vineyards and wineries, and

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