Hochberg and pilots Jim McCord, Will Whiteside, and Matt Keegan donated their time and use of their aircraft for the flights, and all of the relief supplies they brought in were also donated. Keegan, who donated use of his Citation M2 for the flights, lost his family’s home in Santa Rosa in the fires. His wife and two children safely escaped from the home just 15 minutes before it was engulfed in flames. “Those flights actually helped raise awareness, both about the extent of damage from the fires and about how help- ful general aviation can be in the event of an emergency, because there were at least two TV stations in Sacramento and four in San Diego covering them at the time,” Hochberg said. “And, the relief effort itself was an amazingly coordi- nated grassroots effort that I found really inspiring in the midst of all the chaos.” The devastation from the fires hit incredibly close to home for Hochberg and his Sonoma Jet Center team: four of his employees lost their homes and all of their possessions in the fires, prompting him to launch a Sonoma Jet Center Fire Relief Fund that ended up raising nearly $20,000 for their families. “With a wildfire, you don’t get any kind of evacuation notice, the way you might with a hurricane or some other natural disasters, and everything can go up in flames in an instant,” Hochberg described. “Our employees, and many other people in our community, left their houses with noth- ing, not even their wallets in some cases, and came back to piles of ashes where their homes had been, so it became really important to make sure our people were cared for in terms of having a place to stay, food to eat, and the time and flexibility to recover themselves and replace all their stuff.” Hochberg also donated the Sonoma Jet Center’s facil- ity and resources to host a large Sonoma County Fire Relief fundraiser event that helped raise over $500,000 to provide emergency and long-term relief to fire victims in the sur- rounding community. “This is beautiful wine country around here and it’s usu- ally a paradise, but we were reminded of how quickly it can turn into a kind of hell in dangerous fire conditions once the blazes actually got started,” Hochberg said. “Thankfully, we were also reminded of how amazing our team is, how tremendous a resource our FBO and our airport can be, how great some of our friends in this industry can be, and how wonderfully many different companies and government agencies and other organizations and individuals can work together in a time of crisis.” Hochberg would also like everyone to know, that from a tourism perspective, the Northern California Wine coun- try has recovered and is fully open for business. Hochberg added, “As devastating as the fires were at the time, they had surprisingly little effect on the things that make Sonoma County special–the famous wineries, the fine inns and lodges, the spectacular restaurants and the beautiful Sonoma Coast. These locations were largely unaffected by the fires. A visitor today can still enjoy an amazing Wine Country experience in Sonoma County!” Aviation Business Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018 25
