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Don Campion and wife Sueanne
to see opportunities servicing and supporting aircraft. He moved to Ft. Lauderdale after graduation and flew charter customers between Florida and the Bahamas. There, too, he saw an opportunity to provide excellent maintenance support to the little charter company.
It was in Ft. Lauderdale that Don and his friend, an aircraft broker, leased a hangar together and started up a service and sales business. Soon after, in 1979, Banyan Air Service was founded and began operations. It is said that if you build it, they will come, and come they did. Others in the area started requesting service and support from his small company. Don soon took over sole ownership
Egbe, Nigeria, hospital and school
of Banyan, and in 1985, it grew its footprint at FXE and started selling fuel and providing logistics support to transient and based customers. Now anyone could land in Ft. Lauderdale, hangar their airplane overnight, get fuel, get maintenance, reserve a hotel and car, and even find their next airplane – all in one place. Don further explained to TwoTen: “We took advantage of the surround- ing hangar space at the airport and started attracting other peripheral businesses as tenants to provide services that we didn’t provide, including aerial photography, flight schools, helicopter repair, air ambulance, legal assistance for aviation law, cargo, etc. We can now go to the people in our industry and say, ‘If you come to Banyan, you have access to more services offered to meet your needs than perhaps anywhere else in the world.’ That approach has been working very well.”
Selecting the team to help Don provide world-class service is one of the most important aspects of running Banyan. He demonstrates, “We employ close to 200 team- mates, and I have always referred to our employees in that manner because we are all a team. We have a very stringent hiring process consisting of at least four inter- views. [Once given] the thumbs up, we proceed with the hiring process. Then after 90 days, we [dive a little deeper] asking the following.”
• Do they show an attitude of team spirit?
• Do they exhibit the talent, ability and knowledge to meet the requirements of the position for which
they were hired?
• Do they share their knowledge and commu-
nicate it freely?
• Do they make a positive impact on the morale of
the department?
• Do they strive for perfection to improve things and
bring a mindset of continuous improvement?
• Do they play a big role in assisting with customer sat- isfaction and the way that we service our customers?
If that feedback comes back positive, we build upon it to set goals and make that part of their annual review.”
June 2024 / TWIN & TURBINE • 13