AUBURN BEGINS

ONCE IT GOT GOING, THERE WAS NO LOOKING BACK FOR AERO Controls. With Southwest Airlines committed to its resolve to have us as its preferred repair shop, Alaska Airlines, Evergreen Airlines, Air Tech and dozens of other companies started sending their work our way. This reflected pretty quickly in our worksheet as we had over 100 jobs in the shop.

Everyone was working overtime to meet the demand. But there was no way I could double up in multiple roles. We had Brian Thomas as our director of Quality Assurance, and Paul Beringer as shop lead. We hired Bob Williams as director of purchasing. We still had no one heading our accounts, which was also one area where I did not have much experience.
It was around this time that my in-laws came over to the US with immigrant visas. As my father-in-law Mr. K Koshy John had experience in accounting and bookkeeping, I appointed him as our

first accounting manager. However, he was not familiar with the state and federal taxes and all related filing.
As I had to engage a company specializing in taxation to do this work, I called US Bank and asked for their recommendation. Moreover, I did not want to hire our old tax consultant from Win Air days as the boss there was pals with my former partner Bob.
US Bank recommended a firm called Shannon and Associates.
They were located in downtown Kent which had the advantage of being close to my office. I called up and told them that I was looking for an accounting firm. The next day I received a call from the firm's partner Mary Ann Burns who was also a certified public accountant (CPA). I told her briefly about our business and made an appointment for a meeting with her.
Once in her office, I found myself narrating the whole history of how Aero Controls was borne. I told her about being flooded with work, gave her the impressive list of our clients, about the bright future that awaited us and so on.

Mary Ann heard me out but was keen to know one thing - our projected turnover which is normally computed annually. Therefore, when I said $300,000.00, she responded with two words, "First year" in a tone that sounded as if it was more a statement than a question.
I looked her straight in the eyes and said, "First quarter". She looked back at me an expression that revealed her mind, she did not believe me. The incredulous expression on her face made it easy for me to read her thoughts.
Surely, she was thinking this skinny young brown guy, just like any other over-ambitious person of any color, was shooting hot air, with precious little likelihood of making things happen. So she kept quiet, clearly humoring me.
I was left in no doubt as I left her office that day that Mary Ann was convinced the projected turnover was merely wishful thinking

on my side. She thought I was a little boastful too, which I would get to hear from her when she confided in me a few months later. First things first.
After the first quarter, I took the accounts to her. She could not hide the look of utter incredulity when she saw that Aero Controls had surpassed my projection, which meant were well on course to do one million dollars in our very first year of operations.
That was the point in time when Mary Ann became a believer in the John Titus credo! She would go on to narrate this early chapter to many others. Mary Ann would go on to take care of all our accounting and taxation requirements for the next 10 years.
By 1996, Aero Controls had grown to the level where I felt compelled to hire a full-time CPA. I asked her for help to find someone. She told me to give her time so that she could pick the best candidate for the job.

Mary Ann called me a couple of weeks later and said she had found the ideal candidate. I was elated as we were finally getting a full-time CPA on our rolls. Imagine my surprise when she confided that the ideal candidate was herself!
Mary Ann explained that she had been looking for a chance to get out of public accounting for some time. She had been weighing quite a few options and this opportunity with Aero Controls came up, she was clear in her mind that there could be no better candidate than her, as she knew our company inside out.
I was thrilled. She has been taking care of the accounting since inception which made for an easy transition. She had been a great advisor and well-wisher of the company but from outside. Now, she was willing to become an insider, one of us. Even though she was not a lawyer, she probably understood more about all our contracts than any lawyer would.

It was going to be a windfall gain for me as Mary Ann took care of multiple things. She was very good at multitasking. She took care of not only the affairs of the company but also our taxes, that of our children and all the entities I owned.

Sure, she was a trusted person but more important, she was a valuable friend. She had never criticized me for any of the uncon-ventional things I got involved in. I cherished her friendship with utmost respect and love.
If I needed advice on anything, I could always bank on her. We had our share of disagreements, at the end of the day we would agree, even if it meant we agreed to disagree.

Occasionally she would flare up when she was stressed out but bounce right back once I had a good talk with her. She and her hus-band Terry became an integral part of our life. Terry was a softball coach who trained my daughter when she was in junior high. We were good family friends and they even visited India with us once.

By now ACI was running out of space. So we contacted the landlord to exercise the option to lease an additional 1500 sq ft adjacent to our workspace. To our surprise, we found out they had leased out that space without our consensus.
This was a violation of our contract. Again lawyers were involved and the landlord agreed to release us from the three-year lease after one year.
Instead, we found ourselves a place about 11 miles south, in Auburn. The area had just begun getting developed. First, we rented a building for two years and then bought a one-acre land next to our building.
Our goal was to build our first owned workspace. We were growing by a 20-25 per cent rate every year. Soon our leased space was full. I knew it was time to start on our first building.

I hired Rupert and Associates as the architect of the building. Rupert was a long-term resident and well-connected with the city administration. He designed the building, but as per our instruction. It was approximately 22000 sq ft, with 15,000 sq ft on the ground and 7000 sq ft as a mezzanine.
Till then, I had never been involved with any type of construc-tion. After the drawings were done, the project was bid out.
With two bids making the shortlist, I started reviewing their references and job history. The lowest bid came from Poe Construc-tion. Theirs was a small family-owned business and well respected in Auburn. Rupert, our architect recommended them. We were amazed as they completed the construction in only four months. Our choice of the builder was proven right.

In 1987 we moved to our new facility. It was a monumental relocation as we were moving out from a workspace of 6000 sq ft to our building with 22,000 sq ft at our disposal. At the rate of our growth then, 22,000 sq ft would easily cover our requirements for another five years.
Shops were divided based on the nature of the work. We divided our operations with space between the component shop, electronics shop, transmission shop and machine shop. By then, we had over 20 employees. All customer bases were growing smoothly.
There was a small electronics and avionics shop called Data Sciences that was up for sale in Seattle. It had three employees. We had no experience in that field. After negotiation, we bought the company and brought it into our Auburn facility. This marked our entry into avionics, which would turn out to be a far-sighted move. Those days, there was one cargo airline that had begun announc-ing its presence in the transportation business worldwide, FedEx Corp. It was considered prestigious to be chosen as their approved

vendor. Their cargo airplanes were throwing up a significant volume of business, but only to those repair units that figured in their vendor list.
We were missing out big time on a serious business opportunity here. I had approached them a few times but they kept stonewalling our request, as they already had enough vendors. It was an impasse!
Then, one day I got a call from FedEx asking whether we could overhaul a Boeing 747 stabilizer trim actuator, a critical component that came into play during the take-off, cruise and landing of aircraft.

It is a large gearbox with ball screws, hydraulic motors and brakes. It takes approximately 80 man-hours to overhaul such a unit. Besides, there may well arise a requirement for the replacement of some vital parts, which would be additional work.
Normally such an assignment would take 30 days but FedEx had only two weeks to get the repair done. They had already wasted about one month searching for a vendor before they decided to call us.
I immediately knew this was our ticket to enter the FedEx vendor manifest. If we could overhaul this unit in two weeks and prove to them our value, they could no longer deny us the chance we had been seeking for many months.
The first thing I did was to call a meeting of the entire staff at ACI. I apprised them, both of the challenge and the opportunity it posed. I was pretty sure that if I could get them motivated we could pull off the job.

They all agreed to put in all their time and effort. It is now part of air repair folklore that Aero Controls completed the overhaul of the actuator in 11 days. Including the shipping time, FedEx got the precious actuator completely overhauled in less than 14 days.
It took only a week for the FedEx top management to sit up and take notice, They sent a six-member team to find out what Aero Controls was all about and how we managed to do a job that no other vendor was willing to take up, let alone do.
In a matter of days, ACI was part of the FedEx vendor list. Not just another vendor, but a preferred and trusted one. Over the years our relationship grew and continued. FedEx is even today one of our top 10 customers.
Once again, we could think on our feet and improvise which gave us the edge. Going forward, our ability to find out-of-the-box solutions will remain the unique selling proposition (USP) at Aero Controls.

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