Q: How long have you been in the industry?
A: I just got my 45th year anniversary certificate from Swissport. I started in July 1959.
Q: What brought you to the industry 45 years ago?
A: My father (Ray Westmoreland), I went to work for him. I was 18; I started working for him right out of high school. He was one of the founding fathers of Servair, Dynair and Swissport ... the company was called Vertais.
Q: What did you do for him?
A: Everything. In 1959, my father was retired from the military and he and a fellow out of Boston, Roger Felman, started this company dealing with military contracts and remained so for 15 years at different locations. We started at McGuire AFB in New Jersey. We were also doing corrosion control, which meant stripping airplanes, taking all the paint off of them, checking for corrosion and cheap metal. In 1960 we renewed the McGuire contract and we acquired the Dover Delaware military contract doing the same thing. By 61 we had McGuire, Dover and Charleston. My father was running McGuire, I was running Dover and my brother (Tracy) was running Charleston; so for years it was a family operation. During those years, 1959--62, the military was big in charters. Charter and commercial airlines were hauling the dependents and the military guys around. It was at these three installations we started aircraft maintenance for the civilian airlines but we were operating with the military aircraft mechanics. Then in 1963 we had seven sponsors that requested us to come to Kennedy. These were big names; Eastern, TWA, Pan Am, etc. All of the carriers we ran on the military bases sponsored us at Kennedy, which was the first commercial airport we went into.
Q: Was it still under the same name in 1963?
A: When we went to Kennedy in '63 we changed the name to Servair but
all the military contracts for those three years were Vertais. We actually
had to go Teamsters Union and split the name into two names because they didn't
want to unionize all the
rest of the stations.
Q: Was Servair doing the same thing as Vertais?
A: Yes, same company actually, but when we went into Kennedy it was cleaning and ramp operations. We were also big in those days in what we called configuration changes. I was jumping all over the east coast and some of the west coast doing conversions for the different carriers we ran. We were converting them from cargo to passenger and passenger back to cargo. We were doing five or six a month. This was everybody; Braniff, Airlift International, Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, Overseas International, Flying Tigers ? all of those carriers were handled. I think most of them are all gone but they were all big in cargo and military contracts in the '60s and '70s. Then we opened up Newark, New Jersey, Philadelphia and we had an operation in Baltimore. During the '70s I was on the road in charge of the start-up crews. I opened up Kennedy, Boston and Miami. Most of the major airports we're at today -- except a few of them -- I was involved in starting up.
Q: What was the employee growth over the years?
A: We probably employed 75--100 at each station with the military contracts, so probably 300 employees on the military contracts. Our Kennedy operations went from 1963 to 1972 and we sold the company to Dynlectron; that was the big expansion. I stayed on with them and we expanded at Kennedy. We went from 75 employees to about 250 overnight. It all started on New Year's night, 1973. We took about 80 percent of the contracts from our competition and invested 1.8 million dollars in equipment. We couldn't buy fuel because you could only buy a dollar a day for cars so we went through quite an expense for that too.
Q: Did they call it Dynlectron?
A: That's who owned us, but it was still Servair. We dumped 1.7 million (that was a lot of money in those days) and purchased all this new equipment. Everything from air starts to GPUs to tugs to lavcarts, mail carts, L-truck; it just went on and on. And like I said, we were up against that fuel shortage in 1973. We were limited. But fortunately we had some connections in New York that we were able to get fuel after midnight. I don't know who those guys were, all I know is I was giving them cash. We'd exchange cash at 2:00 in the morning for a truck load. We were Dynlectron for quite a few years and then employees bought it out and in 1983 we became Dyncorp. Everybody pitched in a lot of money and bought the company from Dynlectron. I relocated to San Francisco at that time. As a matter of fact I wasn't planning on staying. I came out here to start the company in 1981. We started with Braniff International and I have been here ever since.
Q: I thought you weren't planning on staying.
A: I came out here to start the station and they were looking for a general manager to run it and then one thing led to another and they said "well, can you stay another couple weeks, can you stay another month, until we get people hired?" Then they made me an offer I couldn't refuse and my wife was ready to move out of New Jersey. It's the only station I ever stayed at.
Q: But it's no longer Dyncorp?what happened?
A: Swissport has only owned us about three years now, but just prior to that was another holding company that owned us for about a year. I can't remember the name of the company that bought us out.
Q: Do you know how many locations you're in now?
A: Well, New York has always been the biggest. Washington DC, Miami, Chicago, LAX, Seattle, San Francisco. We closed the military operation in '81 because when we sold to Dynlectron we were not eligible to bid on any military contracts because it was considered small business.
Q: What are some of the major trends and changes you have seen in the industry?
A: Well, in GSE, one of the big things is technology. In the equipment itself ? we've gone from the old mechanical devices to new technologies ? PC boards, etc. It's affected us because most of our mechanics have been here for years so when they come out with a new unit, just like your automobiles, in order to keep up with the technology you need a whole lot more training and more often. Everything from shop equipment to test equipment. We are in the computer age.
Q: What about tracking equipment?
A: We've always had a program called MaintainIt Pro, which tracks the cost, man-hours, etc. I just completed three weeks of meeting all of the VP's from headquarters in Zurich and we have updated to a new program called Maximo. We are online with Zurich now so they can see how many P.O.s I issue each day, how many parts I use a day, all of the work orders can by tracked ? so it's a whole new system. They are going to be in LAX setting them up on the 8th of January and within the next year they should have all of the stations set up. So the main changes I have seen over the years are technology and equipment. Because of these changes, the mechanics have had to become administrators in my view. Instead of writing a work order as they did years ago, they have to be computer savvy ? and it's tough to change old-time mechanics. So it's a new venture for them also.
Q: What are some of the challenges you face in your day-to-day operations?
A: Here in SFO, our challenge is being so busy. We're turning between 25 and 27 freighters a day ? these are 747s. I can't give you a tonnage on what they are turning but I've got seven main deck loaders that we have to keep running, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Unfortunate for the airlines and fortunate for us. For example, we picked up seven of United's major cargo facilities last year in the US that we are operating. Due to the bankruptcy, they had to contract it out. They employed a couple hundred people that we had to hire for that operation. We are big in cargo and we are seeing that expand more and more every year and most of it's from China. Everything we handle here, except one carrier, are international carriers. We've got 80 percent of the business here in San Francisco overall. We have a little over 450 employees. That's counting passenger service, aircraft maintenance, GSE, etc.
Q: Are you still hiring? Is it difficult finding skilled employees?
A: We are finding it is harder and harder to find mechanics primarily because guys don't want to turn wrenches anymore. I am referring to the younger generation. They are computer savvy. Why would you want to come out here in the cold weather and work on equipment or an airplane? So we are definitely seeing changes in that area. The guys coming out of high school and college today are a lot smarter than we were 20 years ago. The industry is going to have to change but right now it can't afford to change. I foresee shortages of GSE mechanics and aircraft mechanics within a few years.
Q: What is your favorite memory of being in this industry?
A: Boy, that's a tough one. Because I have met so many people over the years and I have dealt with so many airlines that I don't think there is any one thing I can actually say. But I would say that ? and you can put this down ? out of the 45 years I have only missed three days of work. My wife says I'm crazy. I don't take vacations unless I'm forced to (my wife forces me.) And my father was a hard worker ? and it was hard for me to work for him because we didn't see eye to eye. The reason I stayed, I guess, is because I was at one airport and he was at another. I always reported to him but never worked with him. He was an old Cherokee Indian, retired drill sergeant out of the Army. My father was 22 years in the service and we lived on military bases a decent part of my life and when I got out of school and worked for him we had military contracts. I was the only guy who hadn't been in the service that spent 27 years on a military base. When I opened up Charleston, SC, I was 23 years old and I walked in to meet the base commander who, at the time, was an old base commander ? looking how I look today. The first thing he said to me was "Son, first of all, Charleston, SC, is my home and I want to welcome you to MY home." So I knew where I stood right away. I only talked to him for about 15--20 minutes but his question to me was, "How long were you in the service?" I responded, "Well, sir, I've never been near the service." He said, "Well son, you could have fooled me."
Q: So Randy, are you going to work until you die?
A: Well, I'm the oldest employee. The first commercial airplane we ever worked was in New York and it was the DC7. Years ago the airline was called Airlift International and before that when we started it was called Riddle Airlines. Then we started getting into the old Constellations, the bigger one that Howard Hughes came out with on TWA. What I love about it is no two days are the same. I was in here at 6:00 a.m. and will probably get home by 7:00 p.m. tonight.
Q: It's amazing you are still married.
A: I started working for my father in July of '59 and I got married in December of '59 and I've been with both of them ever since. A guy I work with just asked me yesterday, "How in the world did you make your marriage last for 45 years?" I said," Well, the marriage was 45 years but I only lived with her for about nine! I was never home so we didn't argue much!" No, I don't think I will retire, I've said this for years ? I hope when I die it's because I got shot by a jealous husband. Seriously, both my job and my wife have been good to me ? I can't complain.
