Q: How did Jeppesen become such a legendary name in Denver?
A: (Elrey Jeppesen) really was an aviation pioneer. He flew at a time when there were no airports. There were no radios in airplanes.
They flew low to the ground because they couldn’t fly high altitude, and they followed the railroad tracks, which meant that water towers and obstacles and things like that were dangerous to low-flying aircraft. He needed to know about those.
Capt. Jepp kept a little black book that he would write down the numbers of the local sheriff and farmers and places that he could call ahead to find out what the weather was, and as his fellow pilots began to know that he had those little black books, he began to sell them.
He went on to fly for Boeing Air Transport, which later became United Airlines. In October 2000, Jeppesen Sanderson was acquired by the Boeing Co., so in some ways, we’ve come full circle back to our roots.
Capt. Jepp started the company in 1934. Today, we have about 1,200 people in Colorado and 1,900 people total.
Q: How does flying into Denver compare with flying into other airports?
A: I think pilots like it here because of the large number of runways.Weather is probably the biggest challenge coming into Colorado, (but) it really is a true all-weather airport.
Q: How widely used are Jeppesen’s flight charts and navigation data?
A: In the U.S., virtually every airline uses us. Across the world, about 60 percent of the airlines use our information. We also have a large number of customers in general aviation (and) business aviation. Worldwide, there are almost 900,000 users of our products and services.
Q: How has aviation changed since Jeppesen began?
A: Aviation is a very conservative industry, so the truth is that the changes in technology have been relatively slow. In our peak, we printed 2.5 billion charts. That was about 5 years ago.
Last year, we printed 1.1 billion. What’s driving that is our ability to deliver the information electronically. We have many customers who are flying with electronic charting but also carry the paper with them.
Q: As a subsidiary of Boeing, how is Jeppesen’s business affected by the relationship?
A: We don’t care what kind of airplanes our customers fly because they fly everything. That means they also fly (Boeing rival) Airbus. This has been particularly challenging for Boeing in one respect, but they’ve been very supportive in another, recognizing that our customers want the same solutions regardless of what kind of airplane they fly.
Q: Do you have time to fly?
A: I’m not current (with pilot certification) right now, but I made a commitment to my son that I would get current.
I’m about to purchase a house on an air park in Parker. I have convinced my wife that it’s OK to have a runway back there.
We also started a flying club at Jeppesen run by the employees. It’s a nonprofit, and I’m giving them $75,000 a year for the next five years to purchase aircraft. The intent there is to help our employees who want to fly and use the products they make.
Q: Why do you work at an aviation-related company?
A: I have a degree in aviation,and I was one of those kids who was enamored with flying. I jumped off the garage with a sheet trying to make a parachute – the end result wasn’t good. I always wanted to be a pilot. My first flight in an airplane was when I was 9. Somebody took me up, and we did acrobatics for about 45 minutes. I was in love with flying, but I was sick as a dog. It was wonderful, and it just hooked me.
In my senior year of college, my eyes went bad. The only way to get the flight time was to go into the military, and the military wouldn’t take me with corrected vision. So that was a very difficult moment in my life, realizing I wasn’t going to become a pilot.
What I found was there was this whole industry supporting airplanes, and I could still fly for fun. In the end, it has all worked out very well.
Edited for space and clarity from an interview by staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi.
