Rani Awad

AVMATS| JUSTIN GIESSMAN
The sum of its parts
When Butch Giessman
left Midcoast Aviation
in 1978 to start
up his own business
selling aircraft parts
from his garage, he
could have had little idea just how far AVMATS
would develop through the course of the next
thirty-seven years. As well as a parts distribution
business, AVMATS now has in-depth engineering
and composite manufacturing and repair
capabilities - to the point where even airframe
OEMs and the company’s competition call on
its services.
Giessman’s son, Justin, now President of
AVMATS, recalls that at the time his father
launched the company, because of taxes, few
companies wanted to carry much by way of a
comprehensive parts inventory. That created the
opening for Butch Giessman, who began with
an inventory of spare parts purchased from another
operator, and then moved on to buying
working aircraft and breaking them down for
spares. In those early years, he specialized in the
Sabreliner fl eet. AVMATS can justifi ably claim to
have been a forerunner in providing alternatives
to high priced OEM parts and for generally improving
the availability of parts.
“Today’s competitive parts-pricing and the
choices enjoyed by operators are largely due
to AVMATS’ unwillingness to accept the status
quo in the industry as far as parts-sourcing is
concerned,” says Justin Giessman.
“In many instances, reducing the aircraft
down to its parts can generate far more revenue
than the aircraft is worth as a flightworthy
asset,” he notes.
Butch Giessman named the company AV-
MATS, an acronym for Aviation Material and
Technical Support. AVMATS still frequently reduces
aircraft for their parts; however, AVMATS
now has a very sophisticated array of back
shops. Every item taken from an aircraft that is
being broken down for parts is now processed
through one of AVMATS’ back shops to restore
it to near-new and comes complete with an FAA
8130 airworthiness approval tag.
“The engine parts go through our turbine
shop, the structural parts through our structural
shop and the components through the components
shop. The depth of our capabilities is
what sets us apart from the competition,” Justin
Giessman notes.
The maintenance side also has its origins
in Butch Giessman’s earlier approach. “He
would sell parts all day, then go out and install
them for the customer in the evening
and sign them off. Things reached the point
where my father opened up a maintenance
shop in a hangar he leased, just to meet the
demand stemming from the sale of the parts,”
Justin Giessman remembers.
This grew into a separate subsidiary, called
Corpair Supply Company, now AVMATS Component
Support, specializing in accessory and component
overhaul capabilities. In fact, customer
demand has driven virtually each new development
in AVMATS’ history, and everything it has
accomplished has been attained by developing
and nurturing the additional skills internally. As
Giessman notes, AVMATS has never acquired
another operation. All growth has been generated
internally.
“For example, we started the MRO station
because customer demand reached the point
where, instead of sending brakes and wheels
out to be fi xed, it made more sense to do them
in-house. That meant additional employees, so
the business grew yet again,” Justin refl ects.
AVMATS now has approximately 200 employees,
with the bulk of its operations in the
St. Louis, Missouri area. “We have facilities at
Spirit of St. Louis Airport and MidAmerica Airport,
where the company developed a 27,000
square foot FBO. We also have a parts and services
facility in Bournemouth, England, which
we started about 15 years ago,” he explains.
36 International | Autumn 2015