As the best golfers from the United States and Europe – and their fans, made their way to Kohler, Wis., for the Ryder Cup, many utilized Sheboygan County Memorial Airport since it is the closest airport to Whistling Straits Golf Course.
But for the public-use, non-towered airport and Burrows Aviation, the independent FBO on-site, managing the additional traffic generated by a major event like the Ryder Cup requires some assistance. So, Jet Event Technologies (JET) stepped in to offer its expertise and consultant services to ensure a smooth week for everyone working at and passing through the airport.
“We want to provide support and logistics for FBOs that struggle with doing this in the industry. Events are a tough area to handle for small, independent FBOs,” says Brian Bourbeau who began JET with his business partner Jenn Swenson in September 2020.
When it was announced last year that the Ryder Cup would be postponed until 2021, Bourbeau and Swenson – who developed the idea for JET while working together at Premier Jet Center in the Twin Cities, saw an opportunity to assist Burrows Aviation.
“We focused on what we could provide – the support, the logistics, what it’s going to take to run an operation of this size,” Bourbeau says. “We felt like we could confidently bring in enough staff and enough equipment to run a safe and efficient operation.
“Our goal is also to increase the revenue for the FBO,” he continues. “How are they maximizing their revenue and making sure they can make it a successful event for them and make it worth their time?”
The Ryder Cup provides unique circumstances, Swenson adds, noting people who are not familiar with golf may not appreciate the scope of the event.
“In my opinion, it can be a completely underserved event because people just don’t know anything about it or don’t understand how the tournament is different from the PGA,” she says.
“We knew pretty quickly we could bring something to the table. It just depended on what support they were looking for,” she continues. “With our business, that’s the nice thing. We can do it all, or we can supply X, Y and Z. We have a very versatile product to fit what the customer needs.”
A common acquaintance in the industry referred Jet Event Technologies’ services to management at Burrows Aviation, and plans to accommodate Ryder Cup traffic commenced.
In an ideal situation, planning for an event this size would begin one year in advance. JET representatives submitted a proposal for the project one year ago. But with changes to the Ryder Cup schedules and other factors related to COVID-19, a contract was finalized just 12 weeks prior to the event.
To accommodate the schedule, Bourbeau took the “playbook” he’s created for handling events and condensed the timeline.
“With Jenn working on the customer service side, we split duties. My focus is operations, equipment – basically everything ramp side. Her focus is computers, customers, limo, catering – everything to support the customer’s flights,” Bourbeau explains. “It really helped out as we were able to split up duties and take a 12-month project and put it into three months.”
Bourbeau adds there were challenges finding the required ground support equipment (GSE) as many distributors had liquidated its fleets to weather the pandemic.
“We’re shipping in things from Idaho, from Arizona. I was able to get a tug from Fargo – finding things and piecemealing equipment from all over the country just to make an event like this work,” Bourbeau says. “That was a tough area for us to plan.”
“Caterers were really challenging because everyone is an hour away. So, food safety and transportation, and then you put staffing, and the bottlenecks and ripple effects from COVID that they’ve all have. Everybody has had a ripple effect with COVID,” Swenson adds.
After preparations were completed, attention could be turned to ground operations at Sheboygan County Memorial Airport.
“The biggest challenges come in right away. It’s the dynamics between an uncontrolled airport and putting a temp-tower in. Then working with airport management on which runways we’re going to shut down,” Bourbeau says. “The airport’s not set up as far as a taxiway system that really allows a good flow. So, it’s how are you having aircraft enter the ramp and exit ramp.
“We look at all of that as a flow process.”
The way aircraft will be parked and how pavement on the ramp can be maximized were also critical for ground ops.
“Pavement is probably your biggest restriction here, as far as how many aircraft we can get on the ground,” Bourbeau says.
Because there are limited hotel options immediately surrounding the airport, the amount of traffic in and out of the airport increased.
“People are dropping and then they’re leaving,” Swenson points out. “It’s almost like this whole market will get hit twice, because they’re often dropping their customers here because we’re closest to the course and then they’re parking in Milwaukee.”
To service the aircraft while they are at the airport, Bourbeau says extra tugs, generators, lav carts, potable water carts and tow-bars were brought in.
“When we’re planning equipment, we start with figuring out our staffing level. Once we have our staffing level, then I figure out with how much staff I have (and ask) how many flights an hour can I work?” Bourbeau explains, noting 10 line techs, five customer service reps (CSRs) and various volunteers were pitching in to work the event.
In addition to having enough staff, developing relationships with all stakeholders at the airport is key to overseeing an event.
“We know that to have a successful event, you need to have partnerships with the tower, the airport commission and the PGA. But we’ll always advocate strongly for (the FBO). That’s our job,” Swenson says.
“In this instance, we needed to move operations. Normally, you can’t operate these large-scale events just out of a traditional FBO,” she adds. “If you have a big event, you want your city to shine. It’s very obvious that it’s important to Kohler that people have a good experience coming in. The terminal here is a very nice representation.”
With the Ryder Cup concluded, won by the Americans 19-9, Bourbeau and Swenson have their sights set on the future.
“Jet Events was pleased with the success of Ryder Cup week at Burrows Aviation, exceeding expectations, working over 450 aircraft arrivals, completing 900-plus operations without one aircraft incident/accident,” Bourbeau says. “We continue to strive and improve our processes all the while focusing our ramp operations around safety. We believe general aviation has rebounded on the event side and expect to keep seeing the numbers grow at future events.”
“We really like events because it is an area that people just fundamentally have no idea how to run. If you have one event every four years, why or how would anyone know how to do that?” Swenson adds. “There’s a lot that goes into it.
“The more vendors we talk to, the more FBOs we talk to, they have no idea this type of business even exists,” she continues. “We wanted to have a product vast enough so we can cast a wide net and see where people need support. We bring really different areas of expertise to it, so we kind of navigate into different FBOs and say, ‘we can help you solve this problem, not just events.’”
