Baja Bush Pilots live for adventure, fun
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/0927cr-p...
Luci Scott
Sept. 27, 2005
Chandler businessman Jack McCormick is an adventurer, a Pied Piper who leads tours of pilots flying private planes into remote spots in Mexico and
Central America.
"I love flying and I love to throw parties," McCormick said.
He also loves Latin America, and combines all three as the president of Baja Bush Pilots.
The company was failing in 1996 when he bought it for $50,000 before parlaying it into one earning a half-million dollars a year. But McCormick said
he's in it for the fun, not the money.
"It's the thrill of the unknown," he said. "There's a certain adrenaline when you go into places that are different and unique."
The company has more than 4,000 members from around the nation, including actor Harrison Ford and race car driver Bobby Unser.
They pay $50 a year, plus extra fees for the trips that McCormick has likened to the movie Romancing the Stone.
"About four years ago, we chartered a bus in Guatemala and . . . we had potholes, mudslides," McCormick said. "It was a typical trip."
Flying his twin-engine Aero Commander, which he keeps at Chandler Municipal Airport, he leads about eight tours a year.
McCormick said his biggest excursion is the whale-watching trip in which he takes 300 to 400 people over two weekends in March to the Baja Sur city of
Mulege.
"We go out on boats and actually touch and feel and pet the whales in lagoons," he said.
"The trips are fabulous," said Mike Vogler of Pasadena, Calif., who works in film production and who has flown his Piper Cherokee to the
whale-watching excursion.
"The organization they put into it is remarkable. They put 50 planes on a small strip without hiccups or accidents or problems."
The adventurous pilot in McCormick is only one aspect of his entrepreneurial spirit.
He spent 40 years as an electrician, 20 of those as an electrical contractor in Oregon. Working that job he discovered the need for time-saving
software to estimate commercial and industrial jobs.
So 26 years ago, he founded McCormick Systems, which has become the nation's leader in electrical estimating software. The company earns $3 million in
annual revenue from about 6,000 accounts. His staff of 35 designs, writes, markets and supports the software.
While McCormick is traveling, he keeps in touch with the office with a satellite phone. But that's an unusual high-tech aid; he and his members often
have to rely on themselves because flying in Mexico and Central America is much like flying in the United States 30 years ago, McCormick said.
There is not good radar coverage, not good weather reporting, flight plans barely exist and pilots aren't tracked from one airport to another.
"Here (in the United States), they're led around by the nose," McCormick said.
Even when they aren't on his trips, members of the Baja Bush Pilots can pick up the phone and seek problem-solving advice from McCormick, who is
well-connected with the Mexican government. He attended the inauguration of President Vicente Fox and has cut tangles of red tape.
"We turned around a real nightmare," McCormick said. "We made traveling in Mexico by small aircraft much easier."
He said enjoys his clients because of their mind-set.
"We're travelers, not tourists; that's my favorite saying," he said. "If it's broke, we try to fix it. If we can't fix it, we try to live without it.
It's the only way we can survive down there."
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