Machine transcript of a phone recording of Spotify playback (the original audio files are no longer available). Lightly corrected; speaker labels and a few names are best-effort, and anything marked [unclear] or [unverified] needs a listen. Timestamps are from the start of the episode.
[0:00] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Welcome to Home with Alexis Michaud. Interesting stories and conversations of the individuals that make up the fabric of our community. In every episode we will give a shout out to a local business, provide some home tips, and have an interesting conversation with someone who makes our community a better place to call home. Today we'd like to start with a shout out to a favorite local business, Alligator Soup, located off of Sahara and Fort Apache. Alligator Soup is a stationery, invitations and gifts-galore local business, and has been a staple in our community since the 1980s. I started going to Alligator Soup when I was probably 5 years old, eventually ordered my wedding invitations from here, and I continued to order event announcements, menus for dinner parties, and grabbed wonderfully thoughtful thank you gifts. If you've never been, it's worth the trip, and if you know it, you know it to be the gem that it is. Now onto our guest. My guest today is Rick Williams, the CEO of AirSmart. I've known Rick for many years, flown with him and trusted him with my life. On one of my first flights with Rick, we were heading to a celebration of life while Yosemite was literally on fire. Other than the emergency crews landing and taking off at the small local airport, no one was coming in and out except us. Rick was focused and determined to get his wife and my best friend to her aunt's celebration. He's an exceptional pilot and person, and I'm excited to have him on this podcast. Rick's story starts out as a young boy lying on the ground, staring at the sky, and dreaming of being Neil Armstrong. He eventually goes into law enforcement, transitions into SWAT, and eventually aviation. He is now the CEO of AirSmart, based out of Las Vegas, a company with multiple aviation services, including chartered flights with multiple pilots and multiple aircraft. So my guest today is Rick Williams, CEO of AirSmart based out of Las Vegas, Nevada and a longtime friend. Rick, welcome.
[2:10] RICK WILLIAMS: Thank you very much. Good morning.
[2:12] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Good morning. So Rick, we have been interviewing people that make Las Vegas a wonderful place to live and you came to mind for many reasons. And one of the, and we'll get into all of it as we walk through this conversation, but one of the first questions I like to ask people is what did you wanna be when you grew up?
[2:34] RICK WILLIAMS: Neil Armstrong, no doubt, an astronaut.
[2:38] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, I love that, I love that. Okay, so, well that really explains how you got to where you are, but I know you had a little bit of a long path. So tell me about where did you grow up? What was your childhood like?
[2:53] RICK WILLIAMS: I grew up in central Utah. And from a young age, always spent a lot of time just looking up at the sky and the clouds, and aerospace club in high school, right in high school in Salt Lake City. And that's where I started to grow my passion for aerospace and aviation and that type of field.
[3:16] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, that is fascinating. I didn't even know they had aerospace clubs in high school. That's great. But then as life goes on and you're graduating high school, what path did you decide to pursue for work?
[3:33] RICK WILLIAMS: Well, oddly enough, it didn't seem at the time there was a lot of recruiters that were there capturing my interest to drag me into the military. I actually went and toured the Air Force Academy with the Aerospace Club. But that was as far as it went. I don't recall ever seeing any recruiters there because I would have joined immediately once I turned 18. My mother, however, was not thrilled with military careers or anything like that because you got to remember this was in the 80s and everybody's still a little fresh off their opinions. She definitely didn't want that at all. But one of my best friends growing up, his father was a deputy sheriff with the department up there. And I grew up watching him.
[4:23] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And what did you see? Like what did you think a deputy sheriff did?
[4:28] RICK WILLIAMS: Well, being in a good friend's house and when you see their fathers come home from work, whether they're dressed in suits or a uniform, or whatever their occupation may be, it definitely caught my attention because he was dressed in a uniform and he looked professional and he had all kinds of tools on his belt that, you know, for a young boy in high school that was very intriguing.
[4:56] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right, so like handcuffs and guns and whatever else they carry.
[5:00] RICK WILLIAMS: Correct.
[5:01] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay. Okay, so do you go, so he's kind of drawing you in to a career in law enforcement, and do you go straight into law enforcement, or how did that come about? You tour the Air Force Academy while you're in high school, that was a no-go. Your mom's like, please don't do this. She's worried for your health and your life, and now you're interested in law enforcement.
[5:25] RICK WILLIAMS: Interested for sure, but unable to join until you're 21 years of age. So that's generally a period of flux between a lot of teenage boys not knowing what they're going to do. And if they don't have a college plan specifically in place or the capabilities to get there, it's definitely a sensitive time. So I worked in meat processing plants, I drove trucks, I worked on a loading dock at a freight company. I did all kinds of different jobs for that two, three year period until I decided, hey, I want to go into law enforcement. I ended up putting myself through the police academy.
[6:09] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And what does a police academy entail? I actually have a lot of friends that are officers, but I've never asked the question. So what is that process?
[6:17] RICK WILLIAMS: Each individual state has their own public safety academy. It's in Utah. And I want to say it may have changed since. It's a three-month course. I'm trying to remember the exact name of it, but it was a three-month course. And you were either sponsored by a department that had hired you and were going to send you through the Academy, or you could be a self-sponsored individual, pay the fees and put yourself through it. And then once you have that certification, it's the, I just remembered the name, it's the Peace Officer Standards and Training, that's called POST. And once you have the POST certification, then you are qualified to be hired by any department within that state.
[7:10] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, so you put yourself through it, and what did you think? I've watched some of the, I don't know if they're new recruits or what you call them, go through some of the training over off of the police department over there off of Cheyenne. You can see them out in the parking lot sometimes, you know, getting like fake attacked, but they look like they're really getting attacked. And so what did you think as you're going through this training? This is for me?
[7:39] RICK WILLIAMS: It's definitely a preparatory program to expose the candidates to everything they potentially will see once they're out on the road by themselves, to see how they're going to react, to see if they're going to be able to withstand mentally, physically, and emotionally the struggles that come with law enforcement.
[8:05] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right. Okay, so you get through the academy and then what happens? Where do you go?
[8:12] RICK WILLIAMS: I immediately was hired with the police department in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley. It's called the Draper City Police Department [name unclear], a small department, if I remember correctly, seven to ten officers, and we did everything. So we had our own canine unit, detectives. It was very small, so we handled every case from start to finish. And so that was my first exposure as a police officer.
[8:37] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, that actually sounds fascinating that you get to do all of it. I wouldn't imagine a lot of other, if you join the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, I'm sure you're really segregated and you're kind of siloed.
[8:52] RICK WILLIAMS: Correct, and the size of the department really limits their capabilities and what they can do, so they have to work with the personnel they have. Generally if there's a high profile case or something like that and the department doesn't have the expertise, they can call on either the county or the state law enforcement agencies to assist them. But it's a very good training ground to bring younger officers up and have them develop the skills they need. If you get immediately hired onto a large department, you'll go right out to the patrol field and you work that for a specific period of time, and then you can apply to the specialized units.
[9:38] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Which is what you eventually, and I don't know exactly how you got there, so let us know, but you eventually end up in some specialized units, don't you?
[9:47] RICK WILLIAMS: Correct. So I spent about a year or so with the Draper City Police Department and then I was hired with the Salt Lake County Sheriff. Initially spent about two years in patrol and then went into the traffic division, which is the motor squad, where I became a major accident investigator. So all the major accidents, fatal accidents, assigned to that task force to investigate those. From that point, I was placed on the SWAT team and into the air support unit.
[10:24] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So what did you do for SWAT? Like why is there even a SWAT team? What does that mean?
[10:31] RICK WILLIAMS: Special weapons and tactics. Generally each department, depending on their size, will assign personnel to these special weapons and tactics teams to serve warrants, arrest warrants, anything that carries a little higher risk, that needs additional planning, that they need more manpower to address the situation safely. So they extract or offer it to the personnel within the department that have the capabilities and the interest, because there's additional training and expertise for those members, a lot more firearms training and hand to hand combat training. Additional skills that will help accomplish whatever the team is trying to do safely.
[11:22] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And can you give an example of what a team would do? I mean, I know you said serve warrants, but my one experience with SWAT, which wasn't personally, thank goodness, was in law school in California. I had an apartment downtown and we were upstairs and our balcony looked over an alley, like it wasn't the most secure neighborhood. And this car comes rolling up and these four big dudes get out of the car and then they roll these ski masks down over their faces, except for their eyes, and take their jackets off, and then you can see it says something in yellow across their chest, and I'm going holy cow. And I go back inside, and my roommate's like, oh, I think that's SWAT. Somebody's been staking out that apartment downstairs. So is that what a day-to-day interaction looks like for a SWAT team, masks on your face, and going in? Or what's it like?
[12:15] Break: home tip
[12:15] ALEXIS MICHAUD: When we come back, Rick describes the day in the life of a SWAT officer and what led him to become the CEO of a local aviation company. Today's home tip is how to make a house a home for your guests. Whether your budget is big or small, making guests feel welcome is probably my favorite thing to do. We recently updated our guest room, which was not yet complete since moving last summer, and I cannot wait to show the before and after photos on my blog. Most important is a large and comfortable bed with the softest bedding you can afford. I'm a fan of white for guest rooms. White sheets, white comforters, white pillows, but all with different textures to add interest. I think of my guest room like a high end hotel room, complete with plush robes, water bottles, good lighting, luggage racks, and fresh flowers. Everything should be spotless and I love to anticipate the needs of my guests. Home is my passion and making everyone feel welcome in mine is my favorite thing to do.
[13:22] Back to the interview
[13:22] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Is it masks on your face going in, or what's it like?
[13:27] RICK WILLIAMS: Well there's a lot of training involved, and so I would say that 70% of it is training and 30% is pre-planned actions, whether that be arrest warrants and those type of situations. And then a very small percentage will be on-call hostage situations or something like that. So I don't know if you recall any of the hostage situations that they've had in Las Vegas or in Utah recently, but those things, as they pop up, they have on-call teams that have to immediately respond and address those situations. They're always prepared, so their vehicles are set up with all the specialized equipment that they may need to handle those emergency situations.
[14:12] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay. And then after SWAT, where did you say you went, the next specialized unit?
[14:19] RICK WILLIAMS: Well, again, I was having that aviation aerospace passion in the back of my mind. The sheriff's department up there had purchased two helicopters and had just started a flight department to address aerial support as a force multiplier for the department, search and rescue, those type of operations. And so I immediately started trying to make contacts and express my interest. And, you know, of course offering any services I could in that unit because I had a desire to get there at one point. And eventually I was transferred into the unit as a flight officer. And the duties are to run the radios, the law enforcement side of the program, and then the pilot, the captain, he was responsible for the aviation side. Once you're in the program though, they of course teach the flight officers how to fly the aircraft in the event of an emergency. If the captain has been shot or something like that, the flight officer can still fly the aircraft and get it to an area of safety. So that's my first exposure into actually flying an aircraft.
[15:31] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And so what's the training like to become a helicopter pilot? Did the police department train you, or did you go to a special school outside of the department?
[15:43] RICK WILLIAMS: Well, when it comes to aviation, generally most people, you know, they'll go and they'll get their private pilot fixed-wing license, then they'll go to a flight school or something like that and they'll progress. Helicopter is not usually something you start out with. I just happened to be fortunate enough to be in that position. But helicopters are so much different than airplanes, and I can say it because I'm an airline transport pilot in both fixed wing and rotorcraft. Helicopters are definitely more challenging when it comes to physical skills and interpretation of the aircraft movement. I always equate it to: if you can drive a clutch and type on your phone, which a lot of people do nowadays, if you can multitask very well and do it safely, and interpret what's happening around you, and talk on the radio and talk on the phone and type on a computer and manipulate the controls of your car, if it's a manual transmission, you can be a helicopter pilot. That's what it is. It's manually manipulating the cyclic, which is the control in the center of the helicopter, directional control, and the collective in the left hand controls elevation. And so there's a lot of different things that are all going on at the same time, and initially it's very intimidating.
[17:09] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah.
[17:10] RICK WILLIAMS: But once you take it piece by piece, and it doesn't matter whether it's flying helicopters or selling houses or building your business, once you break it down to specific sections and learn those sections, it becomes second nature.
[17:25] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah.
[17:26] RICK WILLIAMS: Then you become successful.
[17:27] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So you eventually become a pilot for this division.
[17:33] RICK WILLIAMS: Correct.
[17:34] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And so did you say you're offering like secondary support to the men and women on the ground? Was that the whole point of having it, kind of eyes in the sky? You can see more than the people on the ground.
[17:48] RICK WILLIAMS: Yeah, aerial platforms provide a force multiplier. So you can contain a situation with the aircraft much easier than with a number of personnel on the ground. One airplane or helicopter flying over the top can keep a perimeter on a situation that's occurring. Then, you know, a police pursuit, you can track them safely, communicating with the ground personnel: all right, we're no longer going to pursue in a marked unit with lights and sirens, in hopes that the person that's trying to escape will slow down, and we're not going to endanger the public.
[18:25] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That makes perfect sense. So I think what's clear so far, and maybe you don't feel this way because you're one of the calmest people I know, but you are a little bit of an adrenaline junkie.
[18:38] RICK WILLIAMS: Generally... I like control. [partly inaudible] I really enjoy challenges. With motorcycles, probably from four years of age, I've raced the Baja 1000, helicopters and planes, but I like it in a very controlled fashion, like being able to meet a challenge if I can do it safely.
[19:05] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah, you are the bring-peace-to-chaos person, is what I have seen. So you are in this career for quite a while. And at some point you think, I don't want to do this anymore. So what got you there?
[19:25] RICK WILLIAMS: From departing my law enforcement department?
[19:30] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes.
[19:31] RICK WILLIAMS: Well, I want to say 2002, the Winter Olympics had come to Salt Lake City, and I was assigned as an air support manager at Hill Air Force Base. That same year, the county commission up there had overspent the general fund by about $50 million, and long story short, the helicopters were sold and the program was taken down. I had a choice to either go back to the street and handle, you know, drugs and juvenile problems and people trying to stab you and shoot at you, or I could still fly helicopters. I wasn't going to be guaranteed my retirement; I was invested at eleven years at the time. So I elected to go out and take a shot and try to fly corporate helicopters, commercial helicopters for a while, and that's what got me out of law enforcement.
[20:30] ALEXIS MICHAUD: You know, when I met you many years ago and I asked you, why did you leave? You said just what you said now: because I was just tired of being shot at, stabbed at, and lied to. And I was like, oh, God bless all the people that do that job. Thank you for the time that you did it and to everybody else who's still doing it. So you go into the commercial helicopter business, and was that in Utah or at this point are you coming to Las Vegas?
[21:02] RICK WILLIAMS: I went for about a year to Branson, Missouri. They had a company called Table Rock Helicopters and they flew right off of Highway 76 and did very, very short helicopter tours. Needless to say, I would get about 30 to 50 landings a day in the helicopters we were running out there, but it was a good experience. And after about a year or so, I tried to get back to Utah because I now had acquired more flight time, and in any aviation job flight time equates to experience and the type of aircraft you're capable to fly. So when I left the Sheriff's Department, I had about 700 hours; went to this commercial operator in Missouri, now had about 1,100, 1,200 hours of jet engine helicopter time and definitely a little more marketable. So I tried to get back into the Utah environment of helicopter operators, and you know, I had a family at the time, a younger family, and I was looking for something that was a full-time helicopter position, and everything there at the time was seasonal. Heli-skiing. Some people would say, well, why wouldn't you want to take a heli-skiing seasonal job? I wanted a full-time job coming from a government job.
[22:21] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right.
[22:22] RICK WILLIAMS: I wanted a job. I was looking for that, but all there was at the time was firefighting and heli-skiing. So I had a relative who lived in Las Vegas and he says, we have helicopters everywhere, come down here. That's how I got to Vegas and immediately started flying for Maverick Helicopters.
[22:41] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And Maverick goes out to the Grand Canyon? Is that the one?
[22:45] RICK WILLIAMS: They have Grand Canyon tours, aircraft charters for specialty tours, tours of the area, so you can have all kinds of different options. But yeah, the commercial helicopter primary operation is out to the Grand Canyon.
[22:58] ALEXIS MICHAUD: What's it like flying a helicopter, like getting a helicopter off of a tarmac when the air temperature is 115? I mean, what does that do to a helicopter? Does it change anything?
[23:11] RICK WILLIAMS: Well fortunately, you know, Maverick Helicopters and the other ones here in the Valley have excellent, excellent helicopters. They were previously Eurocopters, now Airbus, and this type of helicopter does really well, because the temperatures in the summer, just like you mentioned, are very hot. Heat, altitude, and humidity are very detrimental to aircraft performance, engine performance. These aircraft have some very, very good engines in them, but you still have to be cautious with weight loads. They have to weigh each individual passenger. And there's limits. 50 degrees Celsius is the max limit for operating the helicopters out here. So we do get close to that sometimes. There's a lot of things to keep an eye on.
[24:02] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Okay, so this is really interesting. And then at some point you say, I want to fly airplanes. So how does that happen? And by this time, this is when I meet you. So when did you start flying airplanes? How did you get into it? And what do you love about it?
[24:23] RICK WILLIAMS: Well, you know, my grandfather had some friends, and I remember him taking me when I was a young kid to see a relative's plane or something like that. I don't think I even got to fly in it. I just got to see it. I had a picture of it. My grandfather was in World War II. He had a flight log, a log book. I remember seeing that. So I always wanted to be associated with planes a little bit, but I had this whole helicopter career. So actually when I was in Missouri flying helicopters down there, I started just taking some private lessons in small planes. So I had a few hours and I was working towards getting my fixed-wing license. And then when I was flying here, the helicopter company, they were chartering the helicopters to do land surveys. If you've heard of Mountain's Edge and Inspirada and Providence, I flew for a land developer. And ratings companies would come out from New York and they would rate the projects. And of course that would determine interest rates. And we were talking a $600 million deal. And if you can shave a half a point off that, it helps. So I was flying for these guys and they asked me to start a program for them, a helicopter program, so I did. That's what got me out of Maverick. But in the meantime, you know, they knew I was getting my fixed-wing license and they said, hey, we want to buy a plane as well. Can you fly it? And I said, well, I don't even have my fixed-wing license. And they said, well, we'll pay for it. You just get it and we'll pay for it. So that was another odd transition, from helicopters into fixed wing.
[26:02] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Serendipity.
[26:03] RICK WILLIAMS: That's how I got my start.
[26:04] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That was a blessing. You know, when you were doing all those surveys, I was a lawyer in a law firm and I'm guessing we probably were working for the same people, and I remember people saying like, I gotta take this helicopter over the mountains out to Pahrump. And I was like, oh, I don't want to get on that helicopter. Had I known it was you flying the helicopter, I think I would have been fine with it. But at the time I thought, oh, no way. No way.
[26:31] RICK WILLIAMS: Yes, we did a lot of site surveys and meetings over there in Pahrump and Calvada and those sections.
[26:38] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So they paid for you to get your fixed wing license. And this has got to be, is this like 15 years ago? Or maybe 12?
[26:48] RICK WILLIAMS: That was probably 2007. At that point now I'm an airline transport pilot in both fixed wing and helicopters. In that program we had a Piper Meridian and an EC-130 helicopter. And then 2008 hit.
[27:05] ALEXIS MICHAUD: We don't know what happened to that.
[27:06] RICK WILLIAMS: Yes, everything fell apart. I don't want to say went down. Everything fell apart, especially here in Las Vegas. The first thing to go in those environments are commercial, well, corporate aircraft, let's say that.
[27:20] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Right, right. Okay, so you're rethinking things. You now have your pilot's license, which is awesome, a fixed wing license. And now explain where you are and what you love about it. I guess, actually, just tell me what you love about flying in general.
[27:43] RICK WILLIAMS: For me, it's relaxing. It takes me back to when I was a kid, laying on the grass, looking up at the clouds. It's my place of refuge from the chaos of everything that's going on on the ground.
[27:57] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yes.
[27:58] RICK WILLIAMS: People might say that's a little odd because it's very dynamic and fluid and there's so much going on, but for me, that's a very calm place.
[28:07] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I mean, as a passenger, I've taken, what, I don't know, 10 hours of flight lessons, always with the hope to get my pilot's license, although we've had multiple discussions about that, and I think maybe you should just be the one to fly. But I think best on an airplane. I used to have to travel all the time, and some of the companies I worked for had their own aviation divisions that I actually had to head up. And that's where I do my best thinking, just staring out that window. And now all the aircraft have wifi, but when they didn't have wifi, you could just think up there, and it gets so much accomplished. And I don't know, I love it up there. So I can imagine as a pilot, even though you're busy, I can see why you love it. You know, one memory I have of you flying is when we were heading, was it Yellowstone that was on fire? Is that where we were going, right outside of Yellowstone? What national park? Huge fire. And we were...
[29:11] RICK WILLIAMS: Yosemite.
[29:12] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yosemite. And you were flying into it. I was just a passenger. And that might have been the first flight I did with you.
[29:24] RICK WILLIAMS: San Francisco, correct? Were we flying up to San Francisco for Thanksgiving or something?
[29:30] ALEXIS MICHAUD: No, no, no, that was a different flight. This is when we went up for your wife's aunt's celebration of life. You remember? And the reason why it's so memorable is because we're going up there to celebrate her aunt. She was wonderful, but you know, everything is on fire and we're going into that little airport, and the only other planes in and out of there, I mean, there were helicopters and planes, but they were all firefighters. And I had been flying with other pilots, and you're just an exceptional pilot. I was like, oh, thank God, I trust this guy with my life. So I guess just thank you for that.
[30:06] RICK WILLIAMS: And it was quite a visual coming through that smoke and everything.
[30:10] ALEXIS MICHAUD: So, okay, so now you're CEO of AirSmart and you've got a lot going on. So tell me what AirSmart is. And for the people around here, if they wanna be able to use your services, how do they find you? What do you offer? What are you doing over there?
[30:28] RICK WILLIAMS: Well, AirSmart is a charter operator, so we're an air carrier with the FAA. Anyone can actually call up and charter the aircraft for a specific flight, just one flight if they want. We also offer a flexible ownership program, which is like a fractional program where instead of having to spend, you know, five, ten million dollars on an airplane, they can spend seven hundred thousand and get the same airplane. Instead of only having one pilot and having all the obligations and issues that come with aircraft ownership, now they can have three, four, five pilots, and none of those worries; we handle all that for them. We also do aircraft management for people who have their own aircraft. We'll take away all the headaches and the worries, logistics, provide the crews, the maintenance. Hopefully a one-stop shop when it comes to anything aviation related.
[31:26] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That's huge, because I know as a lawyer for a company where we had an aviation division, even just finding qualified pilots, with what's happening with the airline industry, you have all these older pilots retiring, and the younger ones want to go into these bigger airlines, they're harder to find. And then the maintenance, it's almost impossible to find good people to do that. So to take that headache away is enormous, and then to have all the pilots that you do, so you're not just beholden to one pilot's schedule, that's a really nice alternative. Love that.
[32:06] RICK WILLIAMS: Yeah, that's the goal, just to increase the accessibility to the consumer and take away all the headache, and of course make it so they have fixed costs. Aviation is such a foreign place to a lot of people when they do start to become successful and they're chartering aircraft or purchasing or whatever. It's a big learning curve. To find someone you can trust to help you navigate through that and find what's best for the individual or the individual company is important. We're trying to focus on doing what's best for the customer: fixed costs, take away the worries. [partly inaudible]
[32:53] ALEXIS MICHAUD: And you just added another aircraft to your fleet, so tell us about that aircraft. It's gorgeous.
[33:00] RICK WILLIAMS: I'd like to talk about it. It's a PC-24, and you can see everything on the AirSmart website [URL unclear]. Pilatus is a Swiss-made aircraft. They've been known for the PC-12, which is a single engine turboprop capable of getting into very short runways. It's sort of known as the Suburban of turbine aircraft, capable of just packing everything you want to take on there. We've loaded motorcycles, everything. The PC-24 is a twin jet. Same configuration, same large cargo door. It's one of the only civilian certified jets in the world approved to land on unimproved runways. Has this large cargo door. We have some of our clients that have special needs and they're in chairs. You can't drive a large electric wheelchair onto a commercial airliner. You can't get them onto any private aircraft. The Pilatus PC-24 has a large cargo door where our clients with these special needs can actually drive their chair right onto the plane.
[34:22] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Oh, that's awesome. That is awesome. And then the unimproved landing strips. So if you've got like a ranch in Montana with a landing strip, this plane can get there.
[34:34] RICK WILLIAMS: Correct.
[34:35] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Yeah, that is so cool.
[34:36] RICK WILLIAMS: Yeah, for Burning Man. So up until this last year, the only aircraft that could get into the Burning Man Festival were turboprops, aircraft that are authorized to land out there. This is the first jet approved to go out and land at Burning Man.
[34:52] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I love that. You posted a picture from Burning Man. I think it was last year. And it's just such a fun experience, but it's one I would like to fly in and out of in a day.
[35:01] RICK WILLIAMS: [Partly inaudible] There's on average seventy-five thousand participants. [Partly inaudible] It's a new experience.
[35:30] ALEXIS MICHAUD: Rick, for anybody who wants to be a pilot, what advice would you give them?
[35:40] RICK WILLIAMS: Well, definitely never back down on your goals. And probably the first thing would be to start finding out exactly the best way to start, and that's getting information. There's a lot of schools and different options. You really need to personally decide, do I want to do this as a hobby? Or do I want to do this as a career? Once you identify that, then find the best place to go as far as a flight school. And then check the background of the flight school. What kind of pilots are they training? Are they training pilots to go into the regional airlines? That kind of information. So really it's just, before you take out a big loan or jump in, make sure you do your homework on it, to make sure that nobody's taking advantage of you. Not that there's a lot of that out there. You just want to get the best result for the money you spend. It's just like any other occupation. It's going to take you four years or so and a chunk of change if you want to fly for a living and bring in six figure salaries. But you can do it.
[36:53] ALEXIS MICHAUD: That's great advice. And then Rick, as a resident of Las Vegas, and I know you're a super outdoorsy guy, what's your favorite thing about living in Nevada?
[37:06] RICK WILLIAMS: I love the weather. You know, people that don't live here don't understand it, but ten months out of the year we're outside doing things, and those other two months when it's really hot, we're still outside with the pool or we're traveling to close places. We're in such an amazing location: close to the beach in California, southern Utah, mountains. I just love the location geographically, the temperature.
[37:33] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I couldn't agree more. You're right, I think a lot of people don't realize it, but it is amazing.
[37:41] RICK WILLIAMS: And where you have all that, yet the entertainment. It's just an amazing place to live, and the actual residents that live here, they are Vegas strong for sure. They rally together and they enjoy where they live, and how they associate, and how hard they work, and the services they provide. You couldn't ask for a better place.
[38:04] ALEXIS MICHAUD: I agree, I agree. Rick, we're lucky to have you here, CEO of AirSmart. Thank you for making our community a better place to call home. From small boyhood dreams of being an astronaut to becoming CEO of an aviation company, Rick's dedication and passion for his work and his family makes us lucky to call him one of ours.
