Central States Industrial Shows How Bizav Makes Everyone’s Job Easier

Mark Cook was in Owensboro, KY, meeting with one of his most important customers, a plant that makes Ragu pasta sauces, when his client commented on how unusual it was for Cook to be there. Not for Cook, but for any supplier to come in person.

“The clients said most of our peers are using [Microsoft] Teams , even for significant decision-making,” recalled Cook, the CEO of Central States Industrial (CSI). “They’ve noticed that CSI will bring senior managers for face-to-face meetings, and that helps launch projects faster, creating more confidence over the budget and the timetable.”

CSI designs the stainless steel piping systems for plants that make food and beverages, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and homecare products. They manufacture everything on site at CSI’s headquarters in Springfield, MO, assembling valves, pumps, heat exchangers and miles of sterile piping, then install the systems in customers’ facilities across the country.

Owensboro is a seven-hour drive across three states from Springfield. There are two flights a day into the small Kentucky airport – but only from Chicago. And yet, Cook’s team has been there many times, in one of CSI’s two Daher TBM airplanes.

“A lot of our customer base is in very small, rural communities and not close to a commercial airport,” explained Eric Gore, CSI’s technical director for food, dairy and beverage. “If we took the airlines or drove, the trip to Owensboro would have been three days. Instead, we left early on the TBM, met with the customer and were back here in Springfield before dinner.”

Bringing the Whole Team

Another difference, flying on the TBMs, is that it suddenly makes sense to bring more people. Cook is the CEO and an instrument-rated pilot. He flew four CSI technical leads and salespeople to the Owensboro meeting.

“We brought the lead project manager who would be running the construction for the next 12-18 months. The clients got to meet him for the first time, and see that his boss and the CEO were behind him,” said Cook. “You look at the list of the things we had to cover, and you could try doing that in a Teams meeting, but we got more done by being around a table.”

A pilot since 1979, Cook has flown for CSI since shortly after his father founded the business. For a time, he flew alongside his brother, also a pilot. “We were partners in a Cherokee Six, and we used the airplane for business until 1995,” said Cook. “Then we got a Piper Saratoga, and used it for sales trips and engineering teams.”

By the early 2000s, CSI’s reach had expanded to where Cook was looking at turboprops. Then the 2008 financial crisis hit.

“It was a very challenging time for a lot of companies, and so we had a meeting where I suggested to the leaders, ‘I think we need to sell the airplane,’” recalled Cook. “They didn’t want to do that. They said it was part of who we are, so instead of getting rid of the airplane, we hired a professional pilot so we could use it more consistently.”

It was not the first time, or the last, that CSI would double down on business aviation, leaving competitors behind as it raced ahead.

“The company has grown a lot, we have a lot more people now, and are doing a lot more work,” said Josh Martin, the chief pilot CSI hired in 2008 and who has led the flight operation ever since.

Two Airplanes, Many Missions

Martin oversaw CSI’s transition to that first turboprop, a TBM-850, in 2013, and then a second, a TBM-940, in 2019. Plans call for the TBM-850 to be replaced with a new TBM-960 this spring.

“We think that the airplanes are vital to CSI,” said Martin. “I’ve had our people say that we would not be able to accomplish what we do today without the aircraft. Our people love what it allows them to get done.”

CSI has a formal system in place for requesting the airplane, specifying the need, who should be on the flight and the timing. Requests are made through a simple Google form, and they are then routed to Martin, Cook and Shannon Boyer, the general manager of the Wisconsin office, who also helps schedule trips.

But in reality, Martin said, “If there’s a need for use of the aircraft, it’s almost always approved.”

Together, the company’s two TBMs fly about 600 hours per year. Cook and Martin each fly most missions single-pilot, although when meetings and flight time extend the duty day, Cook will take Martin along as a second pilot.

The most common missions are like the Owensboro trip, kicking off a new project, or checking on one in progress, but nearly every department in the company has found a way to use the aircraft. CSI has four distribution centers, in Grand Prairie, TX; Kenosha, WI; Modesto, CA; and Durham, NC, and will often fly teams to those locations for training, meetings with suppliers and even financial audits.

“I can get on the plane at 7 a.m. with my auditors, count inventory, and be back at my desk at 3 p.m. that afternoon,” said Director of Finance Michelle Holt. “It cuts down on the hours they spend with our team, so it saves money in the long run.”

Adding Capacity

CSI also uses the TBM to bring customers to their factory in Springfield, to sign off on systems before delivery and to fly salespeople and engineers to trade shows, to learn about the latest equipment, or to meet with foreign suppliers.

“We recently used the airplanes to get a lot of people to Dallas for a new product training,” said Sales Manager Natalee Kaufman. “We have a German-based supplier, and there are no direct flights from Germany to Springfield, but there are to Dallas.

“We brought the suppliers in to provide onboarding for a new product – six of us from Springfield, a contingent from the Modesto office and a sales rep who lives in Knoxville,” Kaufman said. “So, from an efficiency perspective, we were able to provide a meeting location, using the airplanes, that was easy for everyone to get to.”

For almost all these missions, the TBM is ideal. “The nice thing about the TBMs is they’re very capable airplanes. There are not many external factors that would cancel a trip,” said Martin. “You can get around weather easily because you’re going fast.”

Still, Martin is not afraid to move a trip up or back, for safety. And passengers appreciate that. “I’ve flown with Josh so much that I have a lot of faith in him,” said Gore. “And one reason is I’ve seen him tell us no. A couple of times we were in Denver, Josh checked the weather and said, ‘You’ve got two minutes to be on the plane, or we’re not leaving.’”

To add even more dispatch reliability, CSI recently started dry leasing an Embraer Phenom 300. Martin has completed type-rating on the jet, and already done his first year of recurrent training in Dallas.

“The jet gives us two more seats and extra range,” said Martin. “We can fly nonstop to California and customers in Washington state. And these days, we need the extra seats more and more.”