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Shirley Knotz Wikner

BUSINESS
Aviation Charter's comeback signified in
CEO's big award
By Neal St. Anthony (http://www.startribune.com/neal-st-anthony/10646026/) Star Tribune
MARCH 25, 2017 — 1:17PM
CEO Shirley Wikner of Aviation Charter has built the Eden Prairie-based fly, fuel and
repair business into a 10-plane, 54-employee company that has improved its financial
performance and deepened its purpose since she took over for her late husband in 2011.
Wikner will be honored by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in May as its
Minnesota business person of the year.
A court reporter by profession, she said she was wary when her late husband, Roger
Wikner, a real estate financier, started a one-plane operation in 1988, in a bid to turn his love of flying into a small business in a volatile industry.
Wikner, who didn’t pull a steady paycheck for the first 20 years, taught herself to run
day-to-day operations. She learned accounting and finance after her husband suffered a
brain injury six year ago.
The obstacles included soft revenue, high fuel prices and getting tossed into the
“workout” department of her former banker. She was forced to quickly pay down the
mortgage on the company’s Flying Cloud Airport facility and unable to borrow more
money.
“We had never been late on a payment, before or after Roger’s death,” Wikner said. “But
I didn’t fit the bank’s model.”
Wikner credits her longtime employees and advisers, including Venture Bank of
Bloomington, which refinanced Aviation Charter in 2012, and the nonprofit
WomenVenture, consultants for small businesswomen, which helped her better manage
the business so she could translate lower fuel prices in recent years and more efficient
operations into a more profitable business with lower debt and a robust future.
“This isn’t brain surgery,” Wikner said last week. “We have many great long-term
employees. And we are open 24 hours for our customers. I am often on the phone late at
night. We have a lot invested, and we keep that capital operating.
“We do everything on site, including our own fueling operation. There’s economy to
that. We get good customers, serve them well and keep them.”
That includes washing cars for customers and offering them wine and treats as well as
upgrading the passenger terminal.
Wikner also talks about being employee-centered and how female employees who left
the company to have children returned when they were ready.
Wikner is in the middle of a successful three-year plan to reduce debt by 40 percent and
increase profits and philanthropic giving.
Wikner believes another employee-engaging strategy comes from Aviation Charter’s
longtime relationship with LifeSource, the Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization
dedicated to saving lives through organ, eye and tissue donation in the Upper Midwest.
About a quarter of Aviation Charter’s business comes from transporting organs and
surgeons on an on-call basis. Moreover, Aviation Charter is a fundraiser and donor to
the organization.
Wikner and her employees have witnessed grateful recipients of life-giving organ
transplants, as well as donor families helped through the tragic death of a loved one
knowing someone would be saved.
(http://stmedia.startribune.com/images
/ows_14903086619575.jpg)
WOMENVENTURE
Shirley Wikner is the CEO of Eden
Prairie-based Aviation Charter, which her
husband started in ’88 and she took over in
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