Donates To HFI Scholarship Fund
Conklin & de Decker is
celebrating 25 years of providing aircraft operating cost data and
educational programs at this year's Heli-Expo in Houston, Texas on
February 21st through the 23rd. In recognition of that milestone,
the company announced Monday it will donate $2500 to the Helicopter
Foundation International (HFI) scholarship fund for a Helicopter
Maintenance Technician award.
Conklin & de Decker has been providing a family of operating
& acquisition products and delivering educational programs to
the helicopter industry for more than 25 years. Their Aircraft Cost
Evaluator, Life Cycle Cost and the Aircraft Performance Calculator
products and consulting services provide extensive ownership and
operating cost data and analysis for jets, turboprops, helicopters
and piston aircraft.
"This is a great opportunity for us to give back to the industry
and we are excited to support the scholarship program at the
Helicopter Foundation," stated Bill de Decker, President and
co-founder of Conklin & de Decker.
"It's hard to believe this all began in 1984," commented Bill de
Decker, President and co-founder of Conklin & de Decker. "We
were somewhat surprised by our early success and honored by the way
the business aviation market now refers to our cost numbers as the
industry standard. It is humbling to see where we are today and the
broad base of clients that use our data to successfully run their
operation every day," added de Decker.
Alan Conklin retired from his sales
position at Dassault Falcon in 1984 and took with him the model for
calculating aircraft operating costs that he and Bill de Decker
developed for Falcon Jet in 1971. Conklin developed the first
Aircraft Cost Evaluator program during the summer of 1984, started
marketing it at the 1984 NBAA convention and a new business was
born as Al Conklin & Associates.
Bill de Decker had worked closely with Al Conklin at Dassault
and after a successful career with FlightSafety International, Bill
joined Al in 1989 and the Conklin & de Decker partnership was
created.
Alan Conklin's extensive aviation career spanned more than six
decades and began in the US Army Air Corps and US Air Force where
he logged thousands of flight hours. He authored God is My
Instructor Pilot and co-authored the Aircraft Acquisition Planning
book with Bill de Decker He retired from Conklin & de Decker in
2003 and died in November 2006.
Bill de Decker remains as President of Conklin & de Decker
and leads the company with four product lines, consulting services
and numerous seminars conducted each year that focus on taxes and
the cost of operating business aircraft today. Bill began his
aviation career in 1962 as a design engineer on the Apollo moon
landing program followed by a stint at Boeing doing design work and
cost analysis on various helicopter programs. He now
celebrates 20 years with Conklin & de Decker and the business
has grown to include three additional partners, David Wyndham,
Brandon Battles and Nel Stubbs that serve as Vice Presidents of the
company. In addition Conklin & de Decker employs seven others
with extensive aviation and research backgrounds that support their
line of products and services.