A Story of Plain Old Perseverance: Rose Aircraft Services, Inc.
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- Published: Monday, 05 June 2017 08:55
Rose Aircraft Services, Inc. began with a dream, a family, and a one-man-shop. It was 1964 when the Rose family moved to Mena, Arkansas from Dallas. Jack Rose set up his one-man-shop in one corner of a hangar at the Mena Airport, then at the time a three-thousand-foot grass strip with only a few local aircraft.
They began an engine overhaul company and began to buy and sell used aircraft. Soon, upholstery was added to service inventory aircraft. In 1973, the fledgling company upgraded slightly to a property that was less than six thousand square feet. They began to offer paint services, and increased maintenance and light avionics. In 2007, they purchased the local FBO, Mena Air Center.
Today they operate on more than two hundred thousand square feet of hangar shop and office space, employ more than one hundred people, and offer the full range of interior design services. Keith Rose, son of Jack Rose now owns the company along with his sister Brenda. The company has always been family owned, currently on their fourth generation.
However, the word “family” branches out to cover more than names on their family tree. Many of the master craftsman in their Interior Completions and Refurbishing Division have been with the company for over twenty years.
Assisting aerospace and defense companies to showcase their products and services to the international marketplace is a longstanding mission of the AADA. International trade shows are an excellent way to accomplish that goal. One such tradeshow that is quite popular in the Aerospace and Defense community is the NBAA Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (NBAA-BACE).
The passing of Act 1042—the Apprenticeship Training Act is big news for what it can mean to our AADA members. This Act sponsored by Senator Jane English just passed April 6th of this year. This Act revised the tax credit and allowed for an Apprenticeship Program. Under previous law, the credit received by a company was the lesser of two thousand dollars. Essentially what the new law does is increase the maximum annual credit to ten thousand dollars.
The Arkansas Aerospace and Defense Alliance recognizes that a trade association is only as strong as the involvement of their members. Recently, we surveyed the industry and were able to get direct feedback from Alliance members, friends, and partners, and dive a little bit deeper into what they believe is most valuable to our industry.
AirResource Group is celebrating their 10-year anniversary this year, but founders Carl Finch and Cheri McKelvey are not strangers to the aerospace industry. Cheri had sold aircraft for 7 years prior, and Carl had been flying, buying, and selling aircraft since the 1980’s. The aerospace industry is challenging, and it has been said that those who work in it do so from a love of aviation. It was that mutual excitement and passion for flight as well as the ability to offer a comprehensive list of services that led to the founding of AirResource Group. Since 2007, the company has added a maintenance facility in Springdale and Little Rock, nationwide charter services, aviation insurance, and consulting services.