New Aviation Technical Services president ready for growth

EVERETT — Aviation Technical Services is growing and expects to continue to grow. And to do so, the company needs experienced leadership.

That’s why Aviation Technical Services, more commonly known as ATS, tapped Brian Hirshman to serve as the company’s president.

He’s working with CEO Matt Yerbic to manage the Everett-based company that provides maintenance, repair and overhaul services for commercial airlines.

“What we’re talking about is my primary goal is really to help Matt and the team grow the company and take it to the next level,” Hirshman said. “We think there is a real opportunity in the marketplace.”

Hirshman, who joined ATS full time in May, will fill a key role for the company.

“We’re excited to have him on board for his depth of experience in the industry and, not unlike myself, he kind of worked his way up from the ground level at an airline and understands it deeply,” Yerbic said. “I think that’s an important part of our ability to understand our customers’ needs.”

The pair worked with each other 16 years ago at Alaska Airlines in Seattle where Yerbic was in charge of ground operations and Hirshman was in charge of the maintenance side.

“We always joke with each other,” Hirshman said. “You never know who is going to work for whom next so we have to be inherently nice to each other.”

With more than 1,250 employees, ATS is the second largest aerospace employer in the state and one of the biggest maintenance, repair and overhaul companies in the world. Some of its customers include Qantas Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

As a company, ATS conducts regular maintenance for airlines and makes repairs when needed. The company also overhauls planes for commercial airlines. That could be as simple as changing out seats and painting a new livery on a used plane to as complex as replacing the back end to include a larger kitchen and more bathrooms.

The company works on about 30 planes in Everett each month and about 40 planes a month companywide. ATS has been around for 45 years starting under the name Tramco in Renton in 1970. In 2013, Aviation Technical Services was purchased by a group of investors led by Yerbic. Since then, ATS has expanded, opening a facility in Moses Lake in 2013. Last year, it opened a facility in Kansas City, Missouri, and, in December, it bought Texas Air Composites, a Fort Worth-based firm that specializes in composite materials.

All of those pieces allow the company to provide more services for airlines.

“We think there’s a real opportunity in the marketplace to consolidate some of these companies and expand our capabilities so we’re a more integrated supplier to our customers,” Hirshman said.

One of the reasons they believe there’s an opportunity to grow is the health of the major airlines in the country, Yerbic said.

“First of all, the business itself is tied very closely to the health of the airline business,” Yerbic said. “In general, by most people’s estimation, I think the airline industry is as healthy as it ever has been.”

Hirshman still lives in Dallas, but keeps an apartment in Kirkland. He said he’s usually on the road traveling to meet with clients. He has been in the aerospace industry for 25 years, starting out as an aircraft mechanic for Northwest Airlines and eventually working his way into management for the company.

He worked for Alaska Airlines, then Oliver Wyman Consulting in Dallas, Texas, and then Macquarie Captial, also in Dallas. (He was part of Macquarie Capital when it purchased ATS in 2007; that was the group that sold the company to Yerbic and his investors.)

Hirshman went back to airlines when he worked for Southwest Airlines from 2010 to 2014 as senior vice president of operations. He left the company last year and started consulting for ATS.

“He uniquely has been on the bank side of the business, the airline side of the business and the consulting side of the business so he’s very rounded in terms of how he views the world and the needs of all of those constituents,” Yerbic said.

In Europe, companies like Lufthansa Technik provide all of the services that an airline needs to acquire a plane and keep it flying safely in a one-stop shopping company.

ATS can be like that, Hirshman said.

“In the U.S., we think there’s opportunity to build that type of model and we think we’re very well-suited to do that,” he said.

To do so, the company needs to continue to expand. Part of that growth can be organic at existing facilities, Hirshman said. ATS could add a second shift or start working seven days a week at the Forth Worth plant. It could also expand by acquiring more companies.

And that makes for an exciting time, Yerbic said.

“It’s time to make sure we have the resources we need to continue to grow a good company,” Yerbic said.