[00:00:00] SFX: Intro Music IN
[00:00:00] Todd Stanberry: What I would say to business owners and leaders is: invest in your people. I believe that that's been the key to what the future would hold for Metro is, is enabling all the folks, um, that come to work and are so dedicated every day to, to think about what the future looks like for them.
[00:00:00] Ari Marin: I’m Ari Marin, and you’re listening to In Good Companies, from Cadence Bank: the podcast where we have your best interest at heart. We’re back for Season 6, to talk about the future – whatever it holds. Because at Cadence, we’re much more than a financial services provider. We’re a lifetime advocate, driven by your success.
[00:00:00] SFX: Intro Music Out
[00:00:00] Ari Marin VO: The 2020 pandemic has drastically changed the business landscape. On this podcast ; we’re reminded of this most episodes. Because… the Covid question just keeps coming up.
[00:00:00] SFX: Insert sound bites from previous episodes
One industry that was especially impacted is medical aviation. When Covid hit, we needed to provide access to healthcare, and reach people, wherever they were. So air services became essential. And that changed things, long-term.
In fact – in 2022, NASA launched a new mission to research and gather data on advanced air mobility. The goal? Create a new transportation system to improve public services… In 5 years — technologies like air taxis and drones will already be integrated into our system.
So today, we get to the heart of the aviation industry, to understand where it’s been, where it’s going, and how to navigate the changes ahead. Introducing our next guest:
[00:00:00] Todd Stanberry: Todd Stanberry. I'm one of the owners and vice president of Metro Aviation.
[00:00:05] Ari Marin VO: Todd Stanberry grew up around helicopters and airplanes. His dad, Mike, launched Metro Aviation more than 40 years ago; an operations and completions center for air ambulances. Today, the business operates 170 aircrafts across a large swath of the country.
Before joining the family business, Todd had his first career in commercial real estate. Then, he returned to the Metro family and stepped into leadership. From contract negotiation and administration, to client requests and proposals… He now wears a lot of hats, but his vision is always on the future.
[00:00:13] Todd Stanberry: We ended up accidentally falling into the helicopter business very much by necessity. But anyway, that's a different story.
[00:00:13] Ari Marin VO: So I know – you know – we know – this season is all about the future of work. And I promise, we’ll get there. In this episode, we’ll discuss the big changes in the aviation landscape.
But first, we’re going to hear the story of a family business through the ages. The trials and tribulations… The bumps in the road… The strategies to come out on top. We love a good business tale, and we know you’ll enjoy this one. So buckle up, and get ready for take off. This is Metro Aviation.
Family Business Story
[00:00:21] SFX: Music Transition
[00:00:21] Ari Marin: So Metro Aviation, you're a family business in the true sense of the term. Talk to us about the founding of the company. It was your father, is that correct?
[00:00:30] Todd Stanberry: That's right. His name is Mike. He's a graduate of LSU, Louisiana State University, in Baton, Rouge. Go Tigers. He and a fraternity brother of his started a little contracting company. They were doing hydro mulching. And if you're not familiar with hydro mulching, when they put in a new interstate or highway, one of the first things that happens after they build up the dirt on either side of the road is they put this bright green stuff. It's mostly grass seed and there's some chemicals mixed in. And what they're doing is making that grass grow as quick as they can to provide erosion control. And dad had one of the first hydro mulch machines in the state of Louisiana and aviation has been in my family for multiple generations. He would rent a fixed wing airplane and leave Baton Rouge and go to as close as he could get to wherever his next job site was, rent a car and drive to the job site.
[00:01:36] Todd Stanberry: Well, he woke up one morning after doing that a few times and he is like, "I could be a lot more efficient if I had a helicopter because then I could just... I don't need a runway. I could just land at the job site."
[00:01:48] Ari Marin VO: So, yes, when Metro was born – Mike was a one man operation, with a creative mind and a goal: to be more efficient. And Metro – it wasn’t even a thought out venture... It was more of a chartered company; something meant to assist the “real work”. But then – an opportunity came up.
[00:01:48] Todd Stanberry: He would charter time on that helicopter, that one helicopter we had for people that wanted to go up for a joyride or get aerial pictures, maybe their hunting camp or whatever.
And then speaking of hunting, he was on a hunting trip with another buddy of his, and this guy was coincidentally in the banking business. Thank you, Cadence. And this is, by the way, in the late '70s when interest rates were really high, like 18, 19%. The big thing was to get whatever your deposits for the day were to the Federal Reserve as quick as you could so you could earn that 18, 19%. This guy just was distraught about all his armored truck drivers because that was how you move the money. And apparently, the drivers of these trucks were not very dependable. He was losing money every day.
And so dad, being recently in the helicopter business, said, "Well, why don't you use a helicopter to do it?" And the guy's like, "Well, okay, how do you envision that?"
[00:02:57] Ari Marin VO: And the vision: it’s probably not what you'd expect. But you get a sense of what Mike is like… Right? If there's a need, and there's good business to be made, he’s going to have some ideas. So now, imagine three things. Money in bags. A flag pole. And a low flying aircraft.
[00:02:57] Todd Stanberry: What he envisioned was having a pilot and a guy in the back with one of these telescoping boom poles with a hook on the end of it. And he told his buddy in banking, he's like, "You got an American flag at all your branches, right? On a flagpole." He said, "Oh yeah." He said, "Well, it'll be easy. You just put all your cash and deposits in one of those big canvas money bags, hook it to the rope on the flagpole. We'll just put the thing in a hover right over the top of that flagpole and the hook man will grab that bag of cash and checks, throw it in the back of the helicopter. We'll go to all your branches. We'll have it back at the Federal Reserve the same day." And the guy's like, "Wow. Man, that sounds really innovative. That sounds like a great idea."
So on a handshake agreement, and this was dad's first lesson in business, always get it in writing, he went out and got loans for three helicopters. And before he could put the first one in service, the bank in Baton Rouge that he was dealing with sold to another bank in Memphis. And the new ownership decided that helicopter correspondent banking was too risky and they weren't interested. So we had three notes on three brand new helicopters and literally overnight we had no job.
So he loaded up me and my mom in the old Chevy pickup that he had and took a meeting with Sister Agnesita, who was the head nun at Schumpert Medical Center.
[00:04:33] Ari Marin VO: The Schumpert Medical Centre is part of a health network called Christus Health – a catholic non profit that runs more than 600 health centers across the South.
And that organisation? It changed everything for Metro.
At this point in the story – Mike’s plans have folded. He needs to switch gears, and look for the next opening. But one thing you can count on? With Mike Stanberry, the wheels are always in motion.
[00:04:33] Todd Stanberry: Dad, being the entrepreneur that he was, he said, "Sister Agnesita, the new thing in EMS is to use a helicopter." And she said, "Well, Mike, that sounds great, but how much is it going to cost?" And he told her and she said, "Well, I think I can maybe hobble together about half of that." So he said, "Well, hold that thought." And he ran across the street.
Right across the street was, and actually still is, the local CBS affiliate, KSLA. And he met with the station manager over there and he said, "Hey, I think you need to do a joint venture with Schumpert. There's four seats in this helicopter. We'll have a pilot, a flight nurse, a cameraman, and a folding stretcher. We'll send the helicopter out with your cameraman to get aerial footage of the city, get news for the day. And if the hospital gets a call for a motor vehicle accident, we'll fly to the scene and the cameraman will stay on board. He'll get aerial footage of the car crash before we land, put the patient on the stretcher, bring it back to the helicopter, load up the patient. We got to fold down the front seat to make room though, so the cameraman doesn't have a seat anymore. They'll call a taxi for him. We'll get the film out of his camera and we'll bring it back with the patient to the hospital."
We built a rooftop helipad on top of the parking deck at Schumpert. It's still there by the way. Land on that rooftop, helipad, bring the patient down to the ED, and then a courier would come from across the street at KSLA to get that can of film and they'd be able to put it in their news cycle for the day, because this was of course before social media and was about as fast as you could get breaking news. And they loved it.
[00:06:20] Ari Marin VO: You heard right. Mike went in and offered two services in one. He said: we’ll provide the fastest transportation – patients will get the effective care they need – AND we can get media coverage on the fly. And that is how he sealed the deal.
[00:06:20] Todd Stanberry: They actually signed off on it. And if you come in our front door right here in our office, the first thing you'll see is an artist rendering who have the first air medical helicopter that we equipped, and that was kind of how we accidentally found ourselves in the air medical business. And the rest, as they say, is history.
[00:06:41] Ari Marin: That's a fantastic story. Thanks for sharing. So talk to me a little bit about how and when you decided to join the family business.
[00:06:51] Todd Stanberry: So that's an interesting story too. So my dad told me and my sister from a very early age, "I don't believe in nepotism. You'll never work for me. Go do your own thing." And I'm so very thankful that that was the lesson that he taught us. I've heard too many bad stories about kids that go work for their families and have a sense of entitlement and never really earn or learn the value of a dollar.
So when I finished college, I worked in commercial real estate for nearly 13 years, a local family-owned business that I loved, loved the people, and would probably still be there if dad hadn't had a change of heart. Almost 20 years ago, he took me to lunch one day and dad said, "You know, you know all that business I said about nepotism and not wanting you and your sister to work here? Yeah, well, I don't want to sell this place. I'm not getting any younger and would just love if you would consider coming to work with me." And it didn't happen right then. He and I kind of hemmed and hawed about it for a while and had a lot of soul-searching to do because dad and I have always had a pretty good relationship and I didn't want work to come between it.
And so we had that discussion and we promised each other that we'd always put each other first. And we of course are very passionate about the company and the 1,165 employees that we have and making sure we make good sound decisions for them. That's why I wake up every day, but it ended up being the best decision I could have made.
[00:08:33] Ari Marin: Did you feel equipped that you could do the job at the time?
[00:08:36] Todd Stanberry: Not at all. Not at all. I mean, I of course had grown up around it and always took an interest, but had a lot of learning to do. Dad didn't pull any punches like, "Hey, you're not starting out at the top." I'm glad for that. That's the way it should be. I wanted to earn people's trust and respect.
[00:08:58] Ari Marin VO: Being in the field, and doing the work yourself: that’s the Stanberry standard. 15 years in, Todd doesn’t get to spend as much time on the ground anymore - but he takes pride in Metro’s values.
[00:08:58] Todd Stanberry: We are very hands-on. No job too little or too big for any person and any level in the company, but my role primarily revolves around customer interaction, retention business. I'm currently in the middle of responding to a couple of different requests for proposals. That's how hospitals typically initially engage us. It's a really fun process. You get to spend a couple of weeks of your life generating about a 200-page document just riveting. But no, I spend a lot of my time traveling, meeting with our customers face-to-face. We're very much a relationship company and value the relationships we have with our customers all over the country.
[00:09:46] Ari Marin: Let's switch gears a bit and talk about the industry. So you're currently the largest private air medical operator in the United States. Were there any specific needs in the sector that you were able to spot on early or...
[00:09:59] Todd Stanberry: Yeah, I guess the best way to answer that question is the thing that makes Metro unique is that we are purely a traditional operator. We're the only one left that's purely focused on aviation. When we first started out and everybody started out in it, every aircraft that flew air medical missions or flights, patient transports were for the most part based at hospitals. And the hospital would contract with an aviation services provider like us, and they would provide the medical crew and do the patient billing. But then the next model that came along was what they call the community-based or independent provider model. And it grew very much out of a need. You don't want to always base the helicopter in the downtown metropolitan area. Say if you're in Chicago and the main hospitals in Chicago, well a large portion of the patients that need to be transported to that hospital don't live in the downtown area. They live out in rural communities, right? Let's put the aircraft out closer to the patient so they get to the hospital quicker. That was a great idea.
The problem came when it was around 1997 that the centers for Medicare and Medicaid, so CMS, updated the fee schedule for what they pay for air medical transports. Suddenly they're making money hand over fist. And before you knew it, you saw the community-based model just take off like a rocket. And early in the industry there were 500 helicopters doing what we do. And then in a matter of 10 years, 15 years, we're at like 1,300 aircraft. So it's almost tripled in size and the population of the United States has not grown nearly at the same rate. So now what you have is an industry where you've got way too many helicopters competing for the same number of patients.
[00:10:48] Ari Marin VO: So the market for air services became more competitive. Same pond, new fish.
And as it often happens when an industry is crowded – companies start offering more. Suddenly aviation services are hiring medical crew, doing the billing… Getting into the healthcare side of things. But Metro didn’t go there. It stuck to aviation.
And then, another model came out…
[00:10:48] Todd Stanberry: Not too long after that, you had the alternative delivery model, which was the third model was born, and that was kind of a hybrid of the two. The aviation services provider doesn't hire the medical crew full time. What they do is they lease them from the hospital and they pay the hospital a stipend every time they go out on a transport and then they still do the patient billing.
What got out of hand is the patient billing. While Medicare/Medicaid is what people have for insurance for a lot of folks, even though they had updated the fee schedule, it didn't stay up to par with what the cost of air medical transport was. So a lot of these other entities started charging more for private insurance to make up the difference. Well, commercial insurance providers decided they didn't want to pay, so then the patient got stuck with the bill. So say the cost of the transport was $60,000. They send a bill to the insurance company, they say, "Well, we're only going to pay $5,000." So then the remainder of the 55,000 gets sent to the patient.
So this kind of came to a tipping point. Congress got involved and the no Surprises Act was passed in 2020. And basically what it said was you can't bill the patient anymore. You got to work this out between the provider and the insurer. But the reason I'm telling you all this is so you understand we don't get involved in that part of the business. We contract with hospitals and health systems. They provide the medical crew because that's what they do really well. They do the patient billing because they know how to do that.
We're aviation people. We know how to operate and maintain helicopters and airplanes, and we do that, I think better than anybody. We've stayed focused on ways to improve safety. We developed the world's first full motion simulator for the EC135, one of the helicopters we fly the most of. It made things so much safer, right? Because you can replicate things in the simulator that you wouldn't necessarily practice in the real thing. Things like engine failures. We regularly have pilots come through for their recurrent training that say, "Thank you for doing this. It's made me safer as a pilot. It's made us safer as an industry." And that's why we did that.
So long-winded answer to your question, but the thing that makes us unique and being a traditional operator is that we have been, it's enabled us to focus on things that others maybe necessarily didn't, but it needed to be answered.
[00:15:41] Ari Marin VO: If you’re not providing a new service within your company… If like Metro, you don’t want to take on an expertise that isn’t your own; you have to find your competitive edge somewhere else.
For Todd and Mike – that meant pushing harder on completion. Because that’s really where Metro Aviation shines.
If you don’t know what completion means… I promise, it’s simpler than it seems.
[00:15:47] Todd Stanberry: Yeah, it's really kind of cool because see, when you buy a new helicopter, it's not like buying a new car, right? You place an order with the manufacturer, it comes to you, if you were the end consumer, very much in a shell condition. There's no paint. There's no interior panels. There's a seat and maybe one or two radios and an engine. You got just enough to fly it, but it's not pretty. They call it a green airframe.
So the completion side is literally what it says. We're completing the aircraft. We have a paint shop, we have an avionics shop. We make literally fabricate the interior panels and the mounts for all the medical equipment. And if it's going to a law enforcement agency, we build mounts for those guys. They have some really cool stuff, by the way. So that was an answer to a question early on that nobody was really providing.
Now we're in a situation where if somebody comes out with a new piece of medical equipment, it's got to be mounted in the aircraft. You can't just carry it on. The FA has very strict rules about how that works. So because we're actually operating the aircraft for the very people who need whatever that mount may be, we can tell them, "Hey, well let's mock it up in our machine shop and see how it works for you." And if it doesn't, we'll go back to the drawing board. We're building things that people are asking for. And it works in both directions, right? So very complimentary.
[00:17:28] Ari Marin VO: As a company, Metro Aviation is known for two things: basing its services on need; and adapting to change.
But when you’re a family business that takes pride in its traditions, it can feel hard to embrace transformation.
So how do you look towards the future, and encourage new strategies, while passing down your values to the next generation of leaders?
[00:17:31] Todd Stanberry: Yeah, so as Mike would say it, and I wish he was here, he's got a lot of Mike-isms we call them. This would be that double bladed sword or two-edged sword. So in having employees that have the longevity that we do, that's great. That's dedication, that's loyalty, but it also comes at a cost because they're getting older too. And we figured out years ago we've got to do something to grow up their succession. And so we started something called Metro University. It's a leadership development curriculum. We partnered with a company called Wildspark who I can't say more great things about. They're a fantastic company in what they do.
So Metro University is like the campus, WildSpark is like the curriculum. It's purely a voluntary process. Anybody in the company who's been here at least a year can apply. And it's just applying to go to college, you have to fill out an application. Me and several other folks in our leadership team actually read every application. We're up to I think 117 folks that are members or students in Metro University. When we first embarked on this though, I was very adamant, as was our COO about we want to vet this out. We don't want to ask our Metro family to do anything that we're not willing to do ourselves. So we put together two teams and we started it and we spent a year on it before we finally said, "Okay, I think this is ready. Let's open it up."
The genesis of this was actually kind of funny. Our HR department, one of the ladies came to us and said, "Hey, we want to have a Metro door decorating contest." And Ari, it was all I could do to suppress an eye roll. Like, "Oh, great, this is going to be so much fun. Everybody's going to go to Walmart and buy a ghost and hang it on their door. And woohoo!", you know? I was so wrong. There was so much hidden talent under this roof that we didn't know about. I'm talking Hollywood-grade special effects. Like one of the guys in the paint shop, they made their door look like it was boiling. I don't know how they did it. Blood and little fingers and skeleton.
Anyway, so this was all a big eye-opener for us. They were like, "Man, what other talents have we not tapped?"
[00:20:13] Ari Marin VO: Point is: if you want to continue growing as a company; if you want to aim for longevity and make sure everyone is on the same page; you need to engage with your people. Help them think creatively about their work… Encourage them to talk to each other.
[00:20:14] Todd Stanberry: The coolest part about it that I think is that through Wildspark, there's this chat feature. And every time you finish a lesson every month, it encourages you to post about it and you get points. There's a competitive aspect to it. There could be a mechanic in Lebanon, New Hampshire that's talking to a records analyst in Shreveport or a pilot in Bend Oregon who's on a team with an AMP from Melbourne, Florida and they never would've met, right? Otherwise. And they're interacting with each other and they're telling stories.
We had a couple of guys that were like... Man, they were both kind of in that same season of life. Their dad was debilitating and they were able to share stories with each other that I don't think they otherwise would've been able to. And so this chat feature enables us to talk with each other and it just makes that community of Metro family smaller, right? Because back when we were operating out of a trailer, we had the annual Christmas party at our house in the living room with room to spare. And we miss that.
What I would say to business owners and leaders is invest in your people. You want them to come to work because they want to. We always want there to be transparency and empowerment. And so I believe that that's been the key to kind of what the future would hold for Metro, is enabling all the folks that come to work and are so dedicated every day to think about what the future looks like for them.
[00:21:53] Ari Marin: That sounds very cool. Let's switch back quickly back to the industry that you're in. Let's talk about the future. What are you currently paying attention to? What do you think is likely to change soon?
[00:22:08] Todd Stanberry: I don't know about what's likely to change. I don't have a crystal ball, but I can tell you what needs to change. Everything costs too much. And that's not just true of the air medical industry and the completions industry. That's true of any industry, right? We're all hurting. There has been a recent trend of smaller rural community hospitals shuttering their doors. And so all that does is put more pressure on folks like us to be able to transport people to get the care that they need. The problem is the manufacturers, they're not coming up with aircraft that are more affordable. They're getting more expensive.
Kenny and I talk about this all the time. If you look at a graph of what it costs to do what we do, it's on a constant 45 degree incline, while the reimbursement that our hospitals get is either flat or in some cases decreasing. But out of these kind of challenges, I think come great opportunities. And we've seen some folks really start to harness that. One thing that really the only thing right now that has excited me is new ways of powering aircraft. And whether that's electric or hydrogen or some hybrid is going to be the next really good thing for this industry. The technology isn't quite there yet. We got to figure out a way to make things lighter and more efficient, but I think we'll get there. And that really excites me because as the technology improves in this space, the cost actually go down. I mean, we love the smell of jet fuel around here. So getting into the whole electric thing, it took some convincing, but you can't argue with the science. And after touring one of these places, I got to tell you, I'm a believer.
[00:24:11] Ari Marin VO: You heard it from Todd: the future is electric. And to get ready, we’ve got to keep up with technology.
[00:24:16] Todd Stanberry: We have a director of safety innovation. He actually was a B-52 pilot for 25 years in the Air Force, and he's part of the Metro family now. He was the one that introduced me to a lot of this new tech because he was already following it when he was still full-time with the Air Force. And so I got to credit him with a lot of it. But it's a small enough industry that when something new happens, it's not long before people hear about it. There's plenty of chatter though going on in the electric vertical takeoff and landing. But like I said, there's one in particular that we think is doing it right and we're really following them close.
[00:25:03] Ari Marin: So obviously, there's a lot of technology as part of your business. What actually kind of excites you the most? Is it when it relates to a helicopter or a new engine part of the helicopter? Is it something related to part of the completion process that you guys do? What's next for the aviation industry?
[00:25:19] Todd Stanberry: It'll be exciting to see. I really do think the next big thing is going to be alternative propulsion, because there's a whole lot less moving parts and it seems like it's going to last a lot longer. The only big question for me is the batteries, right? Because it ends up being a lot like a inkjet printer. The printer doesn't cost much at all. It's where they get you is when you got to buy the ink every other month to keep it going. But I do think the next big thing is going to be moving away from the gas turbine engine. So Airbus, Bell, Sikorsky, Leonardo, if y'all are listening, man, take a note. I think that's where we're headed.
[00:26:46] Ari Marin VO: We’re taking notes for them, Todd, don’t you worry! As for what the future looks like on the personal side…
[00:26:46] Todd Stanberry: As I look to my future, I hope that I spend, at some point, every day doing something better for somebody else to make our industry, our town, our state, our nation, our world a little better. And I really do think everybody has the ability to change the world just a little bit at a time, but you got to start with one person, right? So I hope that whatever I do on our mission and vision, that I'm inspiring others. That's what I see as my future. So hold me to it.
[00:27:22] Ari Marin VO: I’m not sure Todd needs me to keep his promises. But here are the lessons we can draw from Metro Aviation:
Sometimes, you can find business in unlikely places! When Todd’s father, Mike, started out – aviation was a side gig, to support another venture. When Metro turned into a bigger opportunity, he jumped ship and never looked back.
To make their company stand out, the Stanberrys had to be creative. They offered a new approach to air services and made a name in the healthcare system.
And when the industry landscape started to change, they stayed focused on what they did best: security, transportation, and pilot training. There will always be new trends. So be selective, and think about how you want to grow your business.
For Metro Aviation, longevity and tradition were important.
So they were careful with succession. They created a leadership development curriculum; encouraged innovation inside their teams… And recruited talent to keep an eye on the future.
In aviation, like in many other companies… Technology is at the wheel. So Metro opened a director role for innovation and safety, and keeps up to date with new developments. That might not be true for your business.
Consider what your company needs, first… And then – remember:
[00:28:37] Todd Stanberry: You can only get so many leadership certificates, right? That doesn't make you a leader. It's what you do with the people around you and how you interact with them. And I just think, "Man, if we just did a better job of treating each other like humans, I think our industry and society as a whole would just be a much better place." And I just can't say that enough, Ari. I think that's really what's important these days, you know?
[00:29:22] Ari Marin VO: I’d like to thank Todd Stanberry for sharing his humanity and his business story with us today. His warmth, humility, and wealth of experience will stay with us for a long time.
As for me? I’ll speak to you next week, for another episode of In Good Companies. In the meantime…
[00:29:22] Ari Marin Outro: Do you want to hear more In Good Companies? Then subscribe, rate and review the show! What are you guys curious about? We’d love to hear from you, and the topics that are top of mind. So let us know!
In Good Companies is a podcast from Cadence Bank, member FDIC,
Equal Opportunity Lender. Our production team is Natalie Barron and Eydie Pengelly. Our executive producer is Danielle Kernell. This podcast is made in collaboration with the team at Lower Street. Writing and production from Lise Lovati. Sound design and mixing by Ben Crannell.
[00:30:46] Disclaimer 1: This podcast is provided as a free service to you and is for general informational purposes only. Cadence Bank and its affiliates make no representation or warranties as to the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of the content in the podcast. The podcast is not intended to provide legal, accounting or tax advice and should not be relied upon for such purposes.
The views and opinions expressed by the host and guests in this podcast are solely their own current opinions Regarding the subject matters discussed in the podcast and are based on their own perspectives.
Such views, perspectives, and opinions do not reflect those if Cadence Bank or any of its affiliates or the companies in which any guest is or maybe affiliated. The production and presentation of this podcast by Cadence Bank does not imply the expression of any opinion on part of Cadence Bank or any of its affiliates.