William A. Ong Memorial Award: Ed M. Kilkeary, Sr. The William A. “Bill” Ong Award is named in honor and memory of the National Air Transportation Association’s co-founder and first president. It is given for extraordinary achievement and extended meri- torious service to the general aviation industry. “I’m truly humbled by this honor,” said Ed Kilkeary, Sr., who co-founded L.J. Aviation with his wife Mary Ann Kilkeary in 1980. Kilkeary served on the NATA Board of Directors beginning in 2011 and has been a longtime leader in the industry. “I’ve known many of the previous recipients of the Ong Award over the years, all of them arguably more deserving of it than I am,” said Ed Kilkeary, “and it really feels like an incredible recognition of a life spent in aviation to even be mentioned in their company.” Kilkeary adds, “We started out in this busi- ness from zero and built a nice company with a great reputation the old-fashioned way, with a fair number of airplanes and hundreds of millions of dollars of stuff out here, and we’ve always made money. I’m proud to be able to say we’ve been profitable every year we’ve been in business. And I’m just as proud to have served on the board at NATA and some other organiza- tions to help play a larger role in this industry over the years. I’ve always liked serving on boards because I get to be around people who are much smarter than me!” The Kilkeary family has developed the business at Arnold Palmer Airport in Latrobe, Pennsylvania into a world-class aircraft flight management and charter air- craft operation, and has expanded with satellite bases in Bedford, Massachusetts; Marshfield, Wisconsin; Rochester, New York; and at Greater Pittsburgh International. Kilkeary first fell in love with aviation as a kid and learned to fly while in high school. It’s a genetic predilec- tion passed down from his dad, who was a crewmember on a B-24 Bomber in World War II; and has since been passed on to his own kids, who now help run the busi- ness; Edward M. Kilkeary, Jr. is President of Operations, Kellie Kilkeary is Vice President of Human Resources, and Brad Kilkeary is Vice President of Pilot Services. When Kilkeary was called up to serve in Vietnam after high school, he took some good advice from his dad: “Back then, the only thing I was passionate about was fixing up fast cars and I didn’t really have a lot of direction. I remember my dad saying, ‘Hey, Sunshine, if you’re going to Vietnam, you’re either going to be walking through it or flying over it. Your choice.’ I agreed that the lat- ter sounded a lot better.” He ended up flying Bell UH-1 helicopters with the First Infantry Division. To hear Kilkeary tell it, his life has been a series of such for- tuitous moments. When he returned from the war, there were no helicopter jobs, so he started freelanc- ing as a trucker. In a round-about way, the truck ended up leading him right back into aviation. “I got back from Vietnam and couldn’t immediately find a job in aviation, so I bought a truck and trailer and got into driving for a company in Youngstown, Ohio,” Kilkeary said. “They were quite the wise guys up there, if you know what I mean. But my truck was always spotless. I got to be as fanatical about the chrome and whatnot as I’d been about the Chevrolets I used to build up in high school. I guess I started to work up a good reputation and started attract- ing more customers. One of those customers, Mr. William Stefan, found out about my helicopter experience. One day, he asked me if I’d come on to fly the new Bell 206 Jet Ranger he’d just bought for flying around to check on his coal mines. I figured flying was more fun than driving in traffic, so there wasn’t a lot of hesitation there! Mr. Stefan treated me like a son, so I flew that helicopter out of LBE here for him for six Continued on page 21 Aviation Business Journal | 2nd Quarter 2017 19
