Evolution of an Enterprise, Chapter 17: New Faces, New Jobs

At the nine-month mark of Voyager Industries LLC's first full year of business, the company has doubled in size.

Two new employees have joined the Springfield-based aircraft detailing company co-founded by Binh Uebinger and Josh Somers.

Springfieldian Josh Hicks and St. Louis native Kellen Locke will both work from Voyager's recently opened office at Spirit of St. Louis Airport.

With four employees on board, Uebinger said the company plans to rent a house or apartment in St. Louis for Hicks and Locke. Uebinger and Somers will alternate their time in St. Louis, while the other one covers cleaning duties at Springfield-Branson National Airport.

"We have so much business up there (in St. Louis) that someone needs to be stationed there," Uebinger said. "With this plan, there will be three people there all the time."

Hicks, a college friend of Uebinger's, was working in construction when he ran into Uebinger last year, around the time of Voyager's launch. After leaving his construction job in August with Triple S Properties, Hicks and Uebinger reconnected - just as Voyager was looking for people to handle the new St. Louis traffic.

"I've always been interested in aviation, but it's a different perspective actually seeing the planes firsthand rather than looking at the runway through a big glass window in the terminal," Hicks said. "It's been a real eye-opener for me."

Initially, Uebinger said, the two employees will get $15 an hour per job, but that will be re-evaluated after 90 days based on how many jobs they bring in.

"It's not easy to just walk up to someone you don't know and say, 'Hi, this is what I do.' You're basically selling yourself from the get-go," Uebinger said. "We definitely want to get them to the point where they're managing their own crews and bringing in their own business."

The company has set its sights high for the future as well - Uebinger said he wants to have 10 offices open by 2012.

Back in St. Louis, the company has a deal in place with Texas-based Flexjet, which has more than 100 planes flying around the country, and Uebinger and Somers have an Oct. 8 meeting with executives from NetJets, which has three to five planes flying in and out of St. Louis daily.

Another potential new customer came to the company accidentally.

Uebinger said he and Locke were cleaning a plane in St. Louis for a client in the early evening when another plane rolled into the hangar.

"The guy was hosing it off with a garden hose," Uebinger said. "I offered to let him use some of my product for free, and he said, 'How much will you charge me to just do it?' I could tell he was in a hurry."

The hurried customer was the head of sales and marketing for St. Louis Aircraft Sales, which sells more than 50 planes a year. Uebinger was able to completely detail the plane overnight in preparation to show the plane the next day.

Company President Peter Sudekum said he was impressed with Voyager's work.

"There are a lot of detailers out there who just put a quick shine on a plane, but he really detailed the airplane," Sudekum said. "It looked fantastic. The pricing was reasonable, the work was done on time, and we had zero complaints - which is pretty rare."

Uebinger declined to disclose the price for the work with St. Louis Aircraft, citing a confidentiality agreement with the company.

Sudekum said that while there's no contract in place yet, he anticipates doing more work with Voyager. It's that kind of contact that Uebinger said makes the company's small St. Louis office a good investment.

"The great thing about the office in St. Louis is that it's in a hangar, so the guys can tow the plane inside (and) I could work on it at night," Uebinger said, adding that having an actual office at the airport gives the company instant credibility - a point echoed by Sudekum.

"Instead of someone who might just work out of their car, they have a physical presence there, and they seem to be very knowledgeable about planes," he said. "We move a lot of planes, so having someone local at the airport to detail the airplanes is a huge advantage for us."