Reply #4: And a little PR puff-piece on Evergreen [View All]

AIRLINE WTH AN ATTITUDE: A Special Report on Evergreen Aviation

By DAVID BATES
Of the News-Register

Evergreen International Aviation has an attitude. It starts at the company's front door with a muscular symbol of U.S. military might - an F-15 fighter jet mounted in spectacular fashion near the center of Evergreen's campus on Three Mile Lane.

It continues in the executive building's spacious lobby, decorated with American flags and imagery of the country's most prestigious, no-nonsense bird, the eagle.

It extends all the way into the office of Tim Wahlberg, a former helicopter mechanic turned company president. On display is a framed quotation by Hannibal, the brilliant Carthaginian general who whipped the Roman army in 217 B.C. by hauling 40,000 troops and a contingent of elephants across the Alps during winter: "We will either find a way, or we will make one."

Wahlberg's day often begins on a cell phone as he drives to work in the early morning, arriving about the same time as Del Smith, the company's founder and board chairman.

"For management, it's starting in meetings at 7 o'clock in the morning, so you probably show up around 6:30," said Wahlberg, describing a typical day at the campus where some 500 employees work. "We probably wrap up around 6:30 or 7 o'clock every night. We work on Saturdays about half days, and if we're in the middle of a big project, we forget about Saturdays and Sundays and work right through."

Whether it's the gung-ho patriotism reflected by the flags and eagles, the workaholism of its employees or the intense, hard-edge work environment former employees speak of, it defines Evergreen. A powerful work ethic and uncompromising can-do attitude have built the company.

"I sleep with one eye open," said Smith, who founded Evergreen in 1960 as a crop-dusting outfit. "Don't think you can get complacent. You gotta keep scrambling."

To a large degree, Evergreen's fruits have come from doing the government's labor.

Officials estimate that, depending on the subsidiary, anywhere from 20 to 60 percent of Evergreen's contracts are with federal agencies. Customers include the Forest Service, Postal Service and Air Force.

Wahlberg ventures that about a fifth of the jobs at Evergreen's aircraft maintenance facility in Arizona arrive through public contracts. But then the Evergreen Air Center is one of only three facilities in the United States approved for all types of aircraft work.

Smith, a Republican who donates generously to like-minded congressional candidates, makes no secret of his fierce patriotism.

"If there's a need, we'll be there," he said. "The country doesn't have to ask. We'll volunteer. We're pledged to serve God and mankind."