Business View Magazine | May 2021

84 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MAY 2021 MODERN AV I AT ION “Right now, we have three locations: Wilmington, NC; Denver, CO, which is at Centennial Airport; and Seattle, at Boeing Field,” confirms President and CEO, Mark Carmen, who co-founded the company in 2017 with Emmanuel Yapo, a former executive at Atlantic Aviation. “We acquired the bases in three different transactions and we’ve since been trying to grow them by roughly equal amounts. Our acquisition criteria include size – we’re looking for markets that are growing, for business centers as well as leisure centers, or both. And we’re looking to expand our footprint throughout North America and the Caribbean. We’re pretty open-minded about location.” Backed by Tiger Infrastructure Partners, a middle-market private equity firm with headquarters in New York City, Carmen says they’re actively engaged in consolidating the FBO sector in a way that maintains the right culture and vision. “We want to emphasize high- end customer service, quality, and safety,” he indicates. “We think those are the differentiators in our business, as well as our infrastructure and our facilities.” At this point in their evolution, they’re figuring out how to scale that corporate culture as the business grows. “We’re always looking for best practices,” Carmen explains. “We’re extremely focused on safety and have implemented a safety management system at each of our locations. We’re IS-BAH certified with Stage Two certifications at Denver and Seattle, and Stage One in Wilmington. We also have a safety management team focused on compliance with processes and procedures. As a company, we hold quarterly staff meetings for all employees which, for the last year, have been on Zoom because we haven’t been traveling. We are transparent with our team members about the company’s results and plans, and keep our communication open Modern Aviation - Denver