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