Hal Shevers doesn't have an office at Sporty's. His wife, Sandy, has a rather nice one, replete with Indiana University memorabilia, travel books, and photos of her largely philanthropic life with the man responsible for creating one of the largest general aviation mail-order empires in the United States — and probably the world.
But for Hal Shevers, who returned from a brief retirement a couple of years ago to continue as chairman of both Sportsman's Market and Sporty's Academy, no such haven exists. Actually, his desk makes a strong statement about his character: It sits in the center of the main corporate office at the Clermont County Airport, in Batavia, Ohio, with no cubicle walls to separate him from his employees and with a clear view of the sizable warehouse floor from which Sporty's products are shipped to pilots around the world. "That's as fancy as it gets," says Jerry Blair, vice president, Sporty's Pilot Shop catalog. Sportsman's Market produces four other catalogs besides Sporty's Pilot Shop, which sells aviation products for pilots: Preferred Living (home, lawn, and garden products), The Wright Bros. (memorabilia and gifts for aviation enthusiasts), Outdoor Leisure (outdoor furniture and accessories), and Sporty's Tool Shop (home workshop products) . All products for the catalogs are shipped from this main warehouse. "We don't trust people to drop-ship for us, and that's been part of our success," says Shevers.
Shevers is clearly most comfortable in the middle of the action, where he can keep a sharp eye on the details of an operation and an industry into which he has poured every ounce of his effort.
When he entered Purdue University in the late 1950s, Shevers pursued and obtained a degree in mechanical engineering. But it was the Purdue Flying Club that truly shaped his college days and, subsequently, his life. Shevers received his private pilot certificate in 1958, followed by his instrument rating, his flight instructor and CFII certificates, and finally his airline transport pilot (ATP) certificate in 1966.
Upon college graduation Shevers worked briefly for Cincinnati Milling Machine Company, but his heart was in the air. A self-starter, he marketed out of his trunk a Realtone radio that received aviation frequencies and became the first product sold by Shevers Enterprises, the precursor to Sportsman's Market. "Our first ad in Trade-A-Plane was in the first July 1962 issue," recalls Shevers. "We sold [the radio] for $37.95."
By the mid-1960s, the "Sporty's" name was struck — "It was given to us by our customers," says Shevers, who was supplementing the income received through the budding company by giving flight instruction. Although a businessman, Shevers is also an instructor to the core, and education is a theme that began early and still courses through every aspect of his company's aviation-related ventures.
Notably, in the early to mid-1960s, Shevers collaborated with Joseph Vorbeck, then chairman of general aviation technology at Purdue, to create a three-day ground school for students looking to complete a concentrated program for the private pilot written exam. These courses were a springboard to Shevers' involvement in the AOPA Foundation's (now the AOPA Air Safety Foundation) Flight Training Clinics, which debuted in 1966. VorSeck and Shevers were lifelong friends, and after Vorbeck's death in 1996, Shevers launched a scholarship in his name to be given annually to students in the professional pilot program at the University of Cincinnati, Clermont College. Numerous contributions allow for $10,000 in scholarships annually. A similar scholarship in the names of Hal and Sandy Shevers is in the works for next year, as well as plans to increase the current Claire Phillips Scholarship. (She was one of the first female ATPs and a University of Cincinnati graduate.)
Shevers continues his involvement in aviation education with a focus on getting more people to start flying and retaining them once they get rolling. Shevers was the original chairman of the GA Team 2000's Be A Pilot program, which offers certificates for discounted introductory flights at participating flight schools.
And when the recreational pilot certificate came into being in 1989, Shevers saw it as a steppingstone for pilots to use in the quest for a private certificate. The program works particularly well at Sporty's Academy, the flight school and aviation education development program begun by Shevers and Vorbeck in 1987. Students learn the basics by pursuing the recreational pilot certificate, which teaches them skills such as takeoffs, landings, and local area navigation and radio procedures, and allows them to take friends and family up with them sooner than traditional private pilot courses. Most students, if not all, immediately go on to the private pilot curriculum and finish both certificates in roughly the same amount of time that a private pilot program alone would take.
Shevers offers some food for thought to instructors and pilots alike, based on what he's seen over the years and as a result of recent collaboration between the University of Cincinnati and Sporty's Academy. It all comes down to the basics: "Flight instructors have got to teach that you can't bleed off airspeed [slow down] in ground effect," says Shevers at one point during a conversation with another instructor. Note to pilots: Have your landing airspeed correct on final. It translates to any airplane, from a Cessna 172 to a Cessna Citation.
Sporty's Academy and the Sportsman's Market provide the University of Cincinnati with a chief flight instructor, CFIs, aircraft, a PCATD (personal computer-based aviation training device), and a Frasca 142 flight training device within the main Sportsman's Market building.
As a result of this ongoing collaboration, Shevers bases many of his product offerings on what makes life easier for students and pilots. While Sporty's Academy provides comprehensive courses for recreational, private, and instrument pilots on DVD — created in the company's own production studio on site — Sporty's Pilot Shop features tools and tricks for active pilots.
Many of these handy gadgets derive their existence from problems and solutions that Shevers has personally encountered while flying the airways. Sportsman's Market operates a Citation S/II, which Shevers and two other corporate pilots fly on missions for Sporty's. Shevers notes that they fly as two-person crews for safety and comfort — each pilot could be single-pilot type-rated in the Citation, but they don't deem it to be worth the expense and reduced safety. Qualified crewmembers coming up from the ranks — young pilots eager to build time — are still relatively easy to find: "I can always hire someone to fly with me for $35,000 or $40,000 a year," says Shevers. However, pilots with significantly more experience fill out his current flight department. Jon Potts serves as chief pilot, and he's backed up by George Elbel, a retired Delta Air Lines captain. Shevers himself lost his medical several years ago but got it back six months later with a waiver.
While in training at FlightSafety International for the Citation type rating, and during subsequent hours in the flight levels, Shevers noted the procedure of twisting an altitude clearance into the autopilot's altitude preselect box and wanted the same feature in aircraft not so elaborately equipped. Hence, the Altitude Reminder — a small black box that a pilot can affix to the panel and use for dialing in a cleared altitude, sold for $11.95. "We dream of finding something useful for the right price," says Shevers.
The Sportsman's Market catalogs are still pasted up the old-fashioned way, on a set of large tables that take up an entire corner of the publications department. The advantage is tactile: "So you can see exactly what's going on," says Shevers. The catalogs can be physically reviewed and manipulated before printing — more evidence of Shevers' hands-on approach that trickles down through the company. The Sporty's Pilot Shop catalog, so familiar to pilots everywhere, goes out three times a year, with four different versions each time.
While walking around the publications department at Sportsman's Market, Shevers goes to a shelf full of new products. Security items are getting big, he says, but the Sportsman's Market's tag line is "Keeping flying fun for over 40 years." Through the company catalogs Shevers promotes his "work hard, play hard" ethic. One new item for Preferred Living~ a giant inflatable basketball and hoop for the backyard or pool — at which Shevers takes a quick shot — emphasizes this theory.
The work ethic also shows throughout the building, from the arcade of pinball games, foosball, and ping-pong tables in one corner of the warehouse; to playgrounds outside that encourage spouses to bring kids by after work; to the company's operating hours — Sporty's closes at 5 p.m. on Saturday and doesn't open its flight school until 11 a.m. on Sunday, allowing CFIs and students alike to enjoy their Saturday nights. "You can fly whenever the rest of the week," says Shevers.
Sporty's extends the fun to its customers with a Saturday fly-in every week during the busy flying months. On one brisk Saturday in April, about 30 pilots flew in for free hot dogs and the opportunity to wander around Sporty's on-site shop and showroom. As many as 100 pilots will visit on warm summer Saturdays, according to the company.
Hal and Sandy Shevers met and married in 1965, the day before Hal's thirtieth birthday. His advice, "Don't get married before you're 30," acknowledges that he made the right choice and was merely 24-hours anxious to get to the altar. Though the Shevers have no children, it's clear that there is indeed a Shevers family.
"We're like his children," says Michael Wolf, executive vice president of Sportsman's Market, as he polishes a classic, red-and-white Piper Aztec purchased new in 1963 by Paul Smith, one of Shevers' former students. When Smith could no longer fly it, he passed it along to Shevers in 1970. The factory paint scheme, evoking the era of the early Piper Native American series, was redone more than 10 years ago but still looks fresh. Shevers flies it from time to time, but he spends more hours in the Citation, leaving the vintage Aztec (as well as another late-model Aztec) for other "members of the family" to use to stay current and upgrade their skills.
In a sense, Shevers treats customers like family too — like he would want to be treated. Exchanges, returns, and any problems with orders from previous days are addressed first thing each morning, "before the first order goes out," according to Shevers. The customer care must work, because they keep coming back.
Driving around Batavia's Clermont County Airport makes clear the impact Shevers and the Sportsman's Market have made on the local aviation economy. The company moved here from Cincinnati's Lunken Field in 1970. The original building at Batavia was 5,000 square feet; now Sporty's fills a new 120,000-square-foot installation, with the space needed to triple in size already purchased adjacent to the main building. East Cincinnati Aviation (ECA), a division of Sporty's, serves as a Cessna STAR (sales team authorized representative) dealer for Ohio and West Virginia, and its annual sales quota of 10 aircraft has been exceeded by 150 percent each year (although the quota will likely be revised this year by Cessna). ECA also manages the airport for the City of Batavia, while its fixed-base operator, Sporty's Flight Support, provides services. Cincinnati Avionics, another division of ECA, and a separately owned but amicably connected interior shop, Air Mod, both have dedicated spots on the field.
In fact, Sporty's gave Dennis Wolter, owner of Air Mod, the land to bribe him to come out to Batavia. "His quality standards are in step with Sporty's standards and I've known Dennis since he was 15 years old, riding his motor scooter down to the airport to wash airplanes for flying lessons," says Shevers.
An access road ("Sporty's Toll Road" is the tongue-in-cheek name given to the gravel service road already in place) will someday connect the airport to the University of Cincinnati campus adjacent to the field. Potential areas for expansion exist on the airport as well: The runway could extend 2,000 feet from its current 3,568 feet, with the land for a clear area already set aside. "Some land the airport owns, some is committed, and one parcel needs to be purchased," says Shevers.
Shevers' outreach to the community beyond aviation is evident as well in some of the details. When two local churches lost their meeting space, Shevers offered them the opportunity to congregate in the original Sportsman's Market building across the field from the current operation. The combined membership fills that corner of the airport with song every Sunday morning.
At times it seems that the Sporty's empire cannot be differentiated from Shevers himself, and to that, he answers: "I'm working on it — I want to perpetuate it. When I go, if I go," he says in jest, "the company goes to certain key employees. I've hired several new people this year, experienced pilots who love general aviation." What happens to Sportsman's Market — and GA — is extremely important to Shevers. And he'll stay closely tied to it "as long as I can push the throttles forward."
Which stands as evidence of one truism in following your life's mission: Do what you love, and the money will come.
E-mail the author at [email protected].
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