Kern Award Winner James Lara: ‘Business Aviation Is a Time Machine’

“Business aviation is a time machine that makes me more productive, but to make it fully efficient and economical you need to know your numbers,” said Jim Lara, one of nine 2023 recipients of the Dr. Tony Kern Professionalism in Aviation Award.

With more than 50 years’ experience as a pilot and in various corporate leadership roles, Lara is the principal of Gray Stone Advisors in Knoxville, TN. Founded in 1996, Gray Stone counsels companies and corporations on the business side of their flight departments.

“Flight departments are typically led by pilots, who advance on a technical track, not a business track,” Lara said. “Through analysis and organization design, our objective is to make the flight department a strategic business unit that is fully integrated in the company or corporation it serves.”

As a kid, airplanes fascinated Lara, and he earned his FAA pilot certificate in 1972. Advancing his pilot qualifications on his own time, he melded them with his business career. At another company that turned around failing public companies across the nation, business aviation kept people working. “The turnaround world is a demanding, seven-day-a-week profession,” he said. “And when I climbed the air-stair door, half the time I turned right to work in the cabin, and half the time I turned left for the flight deck.”

Lara, who continues to fly Gray Stone’s Beech Baron, added, “Business aviation is a time machine that makes me more productive, but to make it fully efficient and economical you need to know your numbers. You need to know what’s really happening on the financial side of the house. In business aviation, one number everyone should know is the flight department’s largest variable cost item, the average cost of fuel.”

But business aviation isn’t all about numbers.

“On the management side, effective leaders work to align the passions and interests of their team members with the needs of the organization. If you can craft such a situation, those people will never work a day in their lives because pursuing their passions isn’t work,” Lara said. “Achieving this alignment isn’t tough. All leaders have to do is listen – people will tell you who they are and will share their passions and interests. Our ears are the most powerful leadership tool anyone can employ.”